This volume gathers together some of the most influential essays that still set the critical agenda for our study of The Book of the Duchess , the Parliament of Fowls , the House of Fame , the Legend of Good Women and Chaucer's shorter poems. The first chapter provides an overview of the state of scholarship regarding these allegedly 'minor' works with particular attention to their significance in terms of understanding the development of Chaucer's poetics. For each dream vision and for the shorter poems, three major articles are reprinted. These articles have been selected to show a variety of critical approaches to the works. Each section is introduced by a brief discussion of the interpretive implications of each work's putative occasionality, and a descriptive survey of critical controversies to date. The final chapter suggests new lines of critical enquiry.