Geoffrey Chaucer's Reception of Alan of Lille.

Author / Editor
Simpson, James.

Title
Geoffrey Chaucer's Reception of Alan of Lille.

Published
Frank Bezner and Beate Kellner, eds. Alanus ab Insulis und das europäische Mittelalter (Paderborn: Brill, 2022), pp. 179-94.

Description
Assesses how Chaucer's references to Alain de Lille’s works in HF, 985–89 and PF, 315–18 distinguish his own poetic project from the Neoplatonic ideals that Alain represents, preferring worldly tidings to the spiritual wisdom of the empyrean, and seeking "common profit," not in Ciceronian service to the state but in dedication to natural procreation. Clarifies Neoplatonic idealism (rooted in Plato's "Timaeus") and Chaucer's skeptical attitude toward it as a late medieval Aristotelian work.

Contributor
Bezner, Frank, ed.
Kellner, Beate, ed.

Alternative Title
Alanus ab Insulis und das europäische Mittelalter

Chaucer Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
House of Fame
Parliament of Fowls