Amatory Psychology and Amatory Frustration in the Interpretation of the 'Book of the Duchess'

Author / Editor
Kellogg, Alfred L.

Title
Amatory Psychology and Amatory Frustration in the Interpretation of the 'Book of the Duchess'

Published
Alfred L. Kellogg. Chaucer, Langland, Arthur: Essays in Middle English Literature (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1972), pp. 59-107.

Description
Examines the occasion, structure, and humor of BD, its possible reflections of Chaucer's marriage to Philippa, and the legacy of its heart imagery that derives from Platonic and Arabic thought (Averroes and Ibn Hazm) and the courtly love tradition. The Dreamer, who is separate from but connected to the Narrator as the central figure of the poem, commits four "blunders" in his dialogue with the Black Knight, a dialogue that is infused with serio-comic treatment of the psychology and physiology of love. It may reflect Chaucer's own suffering love when Philippa turned to John of Gaunt.

Alternative Title
Chaucer, Langland, Arthur: Essays in Middle English Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Book of the Duchess
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Chaucer's Life
Style and Versification