The illustrations in this edition attempt to recapture Chaucer's mature vision of the noble life, which refuses to deny the tragic aspects of the chivalric equation of love with war and war with honor. Past illustrations have tended to adopt a Gothic idiom. Here the illustrations adopt a Classical Greek idiom drawn from the Parthenon frieze, Attic black- and red-figure pottery, and ancient Greek sculpture - an idiom suitable to the setting of the tale in legendary Athens and Thebes as well as to Chaucer's humanist impusle.