Two hundred years before Shakespeare observed that "all the world's a stage," another writer with a flair for drama realized the same fact. This writer was Geoffrey Chaucer.

Chaucer, however, presented his dramatic efforts through the medium of short stories, and he is regularly referred to as one of the world's great storytellers. Yet there are certain questions which arise time and again in the minds of literary scholars. Most of the tales in the Canterbury collection are excellent, but why did Chaucer include such obviously poor recitals as the dull "Melibeus" and the lengthy...