Love in Chaucer's Poetry

Paper Summary:

In this paper, the theme of love is analyzed in three poems by Geoffrey Chaucer. By selecting various scenes and motifs from these poems, one can realize the differing concepts of love as they relate to one another, as well as how they compare overall. The paper shows that the resulting notion of love is depicted through different perceptions of love, and how they are perceived through knowledge, divinity and elegy.

From the Paper:

"In this literary study, the theme of love will be analyzed in the "The Book of Duchess", "The House of Fame", and "The Parliament of Fowls" by Geoffrey Chaucer. In this manner, all three poems will present comparing and contrasting elements of love. By utilizing Chaucer's perceptions of love in medieval society, the absence of love due to book knowledge, godly intervention or elegiac poetic form in the overall thematic intentions of these poems. The "Parliament of Fowls" relates the narrator's view of life through advent of reading books, but has no real experience in matters of love. In this respect, the narrator states: "For al be that I knowe nat Love in deed/.Yit happeth me ful ofte in bokes reede/ Of his myrakles and his crewel yre" (Chaucer "Parliament of Fowls" 8;10-11)."

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