The 'Book of the Duchess' and the Mutability Theme

Author / Editor
Rooney, Anne.

Title
The 'Book of the Duchess' and the Mutability Theme

Published
Anne Rooney. Hunting in Middle English Literature (Woodbridge, Suffolk;
and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell & Brewer, 1993), pp. 140-58.

Description
Surveys critical assessments of the hunting episode in BD, explicates details of the episode, and reads it as a representation of worldly bliss. The episode and the allusion to the hunt near the end of the poem frame the Black Knight's account of woe, offering not consolation but acknowledgement of the alternation between bliss and woe in this world.

Alternative Title
Hunting in Middle English Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Book of the Duchess.