Chaucer: Complaint and Narrative

Description: Complaints--courtly, religious, philosophical, moral--were an integral part of Chaucer's poetry, and different combinations of lyric and narrative led to experiments in literary structures. Davenport contends that Chaucer adapts the complaint innovatively to various purposes and that his complaints are not artificial rhetorical exercises.; Instead, complaint was a "seminal idea," a "growth point" that reveals his ideas of "feeling and form in poetry"--in the dual forms (narrative and complaint): Anel, Mars, and SqT; in simple complaints: Lady, ABC, Wom, Nob, Truth, Sted, Purse, Ros, and Form Age; and in compound complaints (involving a semidrama): Ven, Pity, and For.; Davenport also examines the function of complaint in TC, HF, LGW, PF, BD, Bo, and CT, especially in KnT, CYT, ClT, FranT, Mel, MerT, PardT, and WBT.

Chaucer Subjects: Background and General Criticism.; Lyrics and Short Poems.