Metaphors of the Self in the 'Book of the Duchess'

Author / Editor
Pizzorno, Patrizia Grimaldi.

Title
Metaphors of the Self in the 'Book of the Duchess'

Published
Patrizia Grimaldi Pizzorno. Metaphor at Play: Chaucer's Poetics of Exemplarity (Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 1997), pp. 79-109.

Description
In BD, Chaucer combines a series of sustained unconventional allusions to the Narcissus exemplum from the "Roman de la Rose" with the narrative of Ceyx and Alcyone from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" to produce a "moral lesson against suicide" with a concealed "discourse about the self." Also comments on relations among BD, the "Ovide MoraliseĢ," and Machaut's "Fonteinne Amoureuse."

Alternative Title
Metaphor at Play: Chaucer's Poetics of Exemplarity.

Chaucer Subjects
Book of the Duchess
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations