The 'Book of the Duchess'

Published: Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 403-13.

Description: Earlier critics, led by Kittredge, read the poem as a consolation for John of Gaunt, embodied as the Black Knight;the dreamer is naive and childish. Recently, however, Robertson has denied the view of "courtly love" some see in the work. Instead, when viewed in the light of medieval literary theory, the poem is no literal reflection of John of Gaunt; rather, the knight is the "erring will" and the dreamer "reason."; Reprinted from the first (1968) edition, with updated bibliography.