Critics have accounted for the genesis and the ordering of
The Canterbury Tales
by hypothesizing some particular intention in Chaucer's mind. However, the most interesting thing about the bit and pieces of Chaucer's unfinished text is their potential for entering into particular relations with each other. Placing the fragments of
into relation with each other, even though we cannot speak meaningfully of any single one of those relations as historically correct, is a way of understanding each fragment more fully by understanding its possibilities.