From Cleopatra to Alceste: An Iconographic Study of 'The Legend of Good Women

Author / Editor
Kolve, V. A.

Title
From Cleopatra to Alceste: An Iconographic Study of 'The Legend of Good Women

Published
John P. Hermann and John J. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 130-78.

Description
In LGW, Chaucer suppressed most of the Cleopatra tradition (asps, etc.) to make her a medieval "good woman," who builds a shrine for Anthony and enters a snake pit to dramatize the grave-worm "topos." Alceste transcends the grave--the thematic impulse of LGW.

Alternative Title
Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry.

Chaucer Subjects
Legend of Good Women.