'The Book of the Duchess': The Date of Composition Related to the Theme of Impracticality

Author / Editor
Vickery, Gwen M.

Title
'The Book of the Duchess': The Date of Composition Related to the Theme of Impracticality

Published
Essays in Literature (Malcomb, IL) 22 (1995): 161-69.

Description
Argues that BD was composed after John of Gaunt made plans to remarry--or even after his second marriage--and that the poem constitutes both an elegy on the death of Blanche and a "carefully argued justification of Gaunt's second marriage." Further, this justification is covertly undercut, indicating Chaucer's disapproval of the marriage to Constance.

Chaucer Subjects
Book of the Duchess.
Chaucer's Life.