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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
It has been generally agreed that there are glaring faults in Chaucer's elegy for Blanche and that, in spite of occasional beauties, the 'prentice hand is but too apparent. Critics have found the poem tedious, disconnected, and ill-proportioned, languid in its beginning and abrupt in its conclusion, frequently lapsing in taste and in meter, deficient both in humor and in self-fulfilment. Coulton's verdict—“obviously immature and unequal, but full of delightful passages”—would seem, judging by the printed comment, to be that of most sympathetic readers; though many have emphasized the negative rather than the positive half of the judgment. Because I believe that much of the disparagement has arisen from misunderstanding, I invite reconsideration of a work of art that has been rated a good deal lower than it deserves. It may be that characteristic values inherent in the more archaic of Chaucer's writings will reassert themselves in the course of our scrutiny. There have been signs latterly that a truer appreciation is in the making, as in the comments of Wolfgang Clemen and James R. Kreuzer, and to this impulse I wish to add what force I may. Generally, however, the older critical impatience yet prevails.
1 G. G. Coulton, Chaucer and his England (1927), p. 37; Clemen, Der junge Chaucer (Köln, 1938); Kreuzer, “The Dreamer in The Book of The Duchess,” PMLA, lxvi (June 1951), 543-547.
2 G. L. Kittredge, Chaucer and his Poetry (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 48-51, 51-52.
3 Allan Ramsay, Poems (1877), ii, 5.
Note 4a in page 874 The suggestion (cf. Robinson, p. 884, n. to ll. 445 ff.) that “foure and twenty” may be a scribal error (xxiiij for xxviiij) infers to my mind, in view of the context, an unduly factual reporting.
4 A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), p. 423.
5 W. W. Skeat, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford), I, 481-482. Articles on the fers in this poem that do not affect the suggestion here offered are: S. W. Stevenson, “Chaucer's Ferses Twelve,” ELH, vii (1940), 215-222; F. D. Cooley, “Two Notes on Chess Terms in The Book of the Duchess,” MLN, lxiii (1948), 30-35; W. H. French,“Medieval Chess and the Book of the Duchess,” MLN, lxiv (1949), 261-264. Cooley would omit the in “the ferses twelve.” He observes that twelve is a number common in familiar reference, as twelve apostles, douzegers, etc I had neglected his article until mine was written, but in any case our readings do not agree.
6 The Allegory of Love (Oxford, 1936), pp. 167-170.