Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T03:24:44.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Old books brought to life in dreams

the Book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, the Parliament of Fowls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Piero Boitani
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Italy
Jill Mann
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Get access

Summary

When, in a May dream, the mighty God of Love appears to the poetic persona of Geoffrey Chaucer in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, he angrily reproaches the writer for having translated the Roman de la Rose ('an heresye ageyns [Love's] lawe') and composed the 'bok' of Troilus and Criseyde, which shows 'how that wemen han don mis' (G 256, 266). In the tirade that follows, Love asks the poet whether, among all the books he owns, he could not have found 'som story of wemen that were goode and trewe' to serve as a literary model (G 271-2). The God is quite specific in his description of these books:

Yis, God wot, sixty bokes olde and newe

Hast thow thyself, alle ful of storyes grete,

That bothe Romayns and ek Grekes trete

Of sundry wemen, which lyf that they ladde,

And evere an hundred goode ageyn oon badde.

(G) 273-7
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×