Chaucer's “The Legend of Good Women":

NET/SLET/TRB STUDY GUIDE
Date: 25-02-2018, Subject: English

The poem narrates the tragic tales of ten good women in nine sections though Chaucer originally planned for twenty women. The poem is written from 1386 to 1388 and is known for Chaucer's first use of heroic couplet that many great writers employed later.  On the prologue, on a spring day, Chaucer walks on a field enjoying the beauty of daisy flower that is the symbol of love to Chaucer not the rose.  He falls asleep and in his dream he is accused by Cupid, the God of Love of presenting women misogynistically in earlier works such as Troilus and Cressida violating the laws of love and romance.  His companion Alceste known for her fidelity comes for Chaucer's rescue advising him to write a legend of good women admired for their fidelity to their men.  The result is this poem.

(I)The Legend of Cleopatra
Cleopatra becomes the queen of Egypt after the death of king Ptolemy.  Rome with thirst for honour to bring the whole world under its feet sends Antony to win Egypt.  Antony wins but the heart of Cleopatra and enslaved by love, dares to fight against Rome.  However he and his Cleopatra couldn't stand against the mighty Rome and Caesar. He loses the battle and stabs himself ashamed of his defeat. Cleopatra flees to Egypt, mourns for Antony's death, digs a grave, fills it with poisonous serpents of Egypt and jumps into it nakedly.  She receives the horrible death but with cheerful heart, all for her true love for Antony.

II) The Legend of Thisbe
Queen Semiramis of Babylon builds a wall so high and strong in her city that separates the families of two lords on either side.  Pyramas from the family on one side and Thisbe from a family on the other side fall in love with each other and exchange voices through the cleft in the wall.  Love develops and now both curse the wall –“o wicked wall, why don't you slit and all fall in two?”  One day, with no hopes of union supported by their stubborn families,  they decide to steal away from the city and fix King Ninus' grave under a tree near the well as the meeting place.  Thisbe who could not wait a long, daring to face the dangers of night for love, runs ahead to the place only to find a lioness with blood-stained mouth drink water from the well.  She hides herself in the nearby cave.  The lioness finds the veil fallen from her and tears it into pieces and leaves the place in despair.  Pyramas who comes to the place mistakes Thisbe to be dead, curses his late arrival and kills himself in woes. Thisbe comes out but too late only to find Pyramas to leave his last breath. She embraces his corpse and in weeps kisses his cold lips.  To show that a woman is no less true in love than man, she takes his sword nearby and strikes her to death taking a vow to follow Pyramas wherever he goes.

III) The Legend of Dido
Aeneas, after the fall of Troy, with his little child and old father, flees from Troy in grief losing his honour and inheritance.  He sets his ships for Italy but beaten by tempest, separated by his men land on the land of Carthage with his companion Achates.  Dido, the queen of Carthage, known for firing the whole world with her beauty, sees him in a temple and is impressed by the tales of earlier adventures by Aeneas and pities for his present state.  She recovers his ships and his men who were lost in the ocean and gives them all joys and feasts they needed. Soon her pity turn into love for Aeneas. Tormented by her love she sighs sleeplessly and tosses and turns in bed.  The next day she goes for hunting with Aeneas, and driven into a cave by sudden rain, Aeneas opens his heart, proposes her and vows to be with her truly all her life.  They marry and and enjoy the blissful life. But Aeneas soon wearied of. Game of love, decides to resume his journey for Italy.  Dido falls at his feet, implores him but all in vain. Leaving his sword and cloth, he steals away at night, sets sail for Italy with his men and there marries Lavinia .  Dido dies in despair and grief striking herself with his sword after writing a letter of grief revealing the infidelity of Aeneas.

Inspired by Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe wrote the Renaissance drama “Dido, the Queen of Carthage.” Shakespeare also refers to Dido in most of his plays including four times in the Tempest and twice in “Titus Andronicus”.

IV The Legend of Hypsipyle and Medea
Peleus is the king of Thessaly and grows jealous of the name and honour of Jason, his brother Aeson's son. Jason, one of the greatest Greek heroes is then sent to the island of Colchis to bring the rarest gold available there and being guarded by a dragon and two bulls.  Without knowing that all this is but a trick by the king to kill him, Jason sets his sail for Colchis along with his friend Hercules.  But on the way, he is received well by Hypsipyle, queen of  Lemnos who falls in love with him after knowing his valour and honour through Hercules.  Being falsely impressed by Jason and Hercules, Hypsipyle falls a victim to his pretended love.  She is wedded to him and begets two children but to her great grief Jason leaves her for Colchis neglecting his vow of fidelity to her. She dies of grief and for her true love at last.
The continuation of this is the inbuilt legend of Medea:
Jason reaches Colchis venturing for the fleece of gold.  He is hosted by the king and her daughter Medea who loves him for his valour and honour.  She tells him that without her help, it's not possible to win the battle for the gold.  He marries her by swearing that he will be faithful to her till he is alive.  She explains in detail how to win the battle and makes him a victor.  Without the knowledge of her father, he takes her and the rarest gold to Thessaly but on the way betrays her and leaves her to die out of grief in a lonely place.   Being a traitor on love, he wedded another woman as a third wife and proved that nowhere a false lover can be found better than he.

V) The Legend of Lucretia
Rome sieges Ardea and the siege prolongs for many days.  So tired of idly waiting in the siege, Tarquinius, Prince of Rome asks his soldiers to tell an interesting tale of their best wife that will ease the situation.  Collatinus, one of the soldiers narrates the love and fidelity of his wife Lucretia and even challenges to test the truth by visiting his house in person.  Collatinus takes the prince innocently to his house where the prince hides and watches his man bring kissed by his wife. The beauty of Lucretia strikes the prince with lust.  The next day losing all his peace haunted by desire for Lucretia, he dares to go alone to her house stealthily.  Threatening her with sword and bringing ill name to her husband as committed adultery, the prince rapes her. She begs for grace but all in vain. When he leaves, she calls her husband, family and friends and brings all to light. Forgiven by all, She however stabs herself since she could not forgive herself.  Brutus vows to get the prince and all his relations banished and takes her body throughout the city to arouse people to revolt against the king. Lucretia, even before her death, looked down to ensure no part of her body is left bare and such a chasteful woman was she, a true martyr.

Lucretia's rape and suicide is the subject matter of Shakespeare’s poem “Rape of Lucrece”(1594) She is also main focus in Thomas Heywood's play “Rape of Lucretia” and Richardson’s novel “Pamela”

VI) The Legend of Ariadne of Athens
Minos, king of Crete sends his son Androgeus to Athens for study where he is slain. To avenge his son’s death, he conquers Athens and other towns. He makes a new custom that every three years once, one Athenian should be given as a sacrifice to the hungry monster of Minos as a compensation for the loss of his dear son Androgeus. It so happens in a year that Theseus, the prince of Athens is selected for sacrifice and is brought to jail in Crete.  Ariadne, daughter of Minos plans with her sister Phaedra to rescue the prince with the jailer, a knife and two balls of thread -jailer will bring Theseus to the sisters, knife to kill the monster and the thread balls to show the way to flee from Crete.  Theseus falls at her feet and vows to be her page or slave, for he has already been in love with her for seven years. He swears to be true to her all her day and night. Ariadne loves him and all happen as they planned. Theseus flees from the place with the jailer, Ariadne and her sister. On the way, the ship reaches an island where Theseus wants to rest but in the middle of night, he abandons Ariadne and elopes with her sister to Athens. Ariadne who saved him from beast was betrayed and left alone at night in an island of beasts by the traitor beast Theseus. Ariadne hopes in vain for his return and thus ends the tragic legend of Ariadne.

VII)  The Legend of Philomela
Procne, wife of Tereus, king of Thrace longs for seeing her sister Philomela and beseeches her husband who takes her father Pandion's palace where Tereus eyes on Philomela with a burning heart. Father unwillingly permits for taking Philomela to Thrace but insists of her safe return. Philomela is brought to Thrace and is taken by Tereus alone to a forest and there into a cave. She innocently asks, “Where is my sister, brother Tereus?” without knowing that she is now a lamb in the hands of hungry wolf or a dove in the clutches of an eagle. When he proceeds, she cries for help ,”Sister, father dear, God above” but nobody came to her rescue. She is berefted of her virginity and moreover Tereus cuts her tongue, lest she should reveal everything and defile his honour. He also puts her on a castle for his use and returns home. He weeps, sheds crocodile tears and conveys that Philomela was found dead.  However Philomela who weaves a tapestry narrating all that happened and sends it to Procne through a boy. Procne pretends to her husband as if going to the temple of Bacchus and visits Philomela whom she takes in her arms and weeps a lot in agony.  Chaucer doesn't tell what happened thereafter and ends the story by making a warning to woman to be beware of man.  The history or myth goes that Procne killed Tereus' son and made him a feast to Tereus who chased both sisters but answering the prayer of the sisters, God transformed Procne and Philomela into the birds swallow and nightingale respectively.

Keats directly employs the myth of Philomela in “Eve of St Agnes" and modern poet T.S.Eliot points out her in ''The Waste Land" thus –

“The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
"Jug Jug" to dirty ears.”

VIII) The Legend of Phyllis
The story begins after the fall of Troy.  Returning from the war, on the way to his home, Demophone, son of Theseus and king of Athens is driven by wind and heavy rain to the land where Phyllis is the queen.  Demophone is almost dead without food and water whom Phyllis rescues offering shelter. He swears to be faithful to her all his life and lives with her. He goes home with a promise that he will have to arrange for their marriage and return in a month to take her to his place.  He trusts him but he returns not. Four months passed, and Phyllis realises that she is betrayed. She laments in torments and writes a last letter to him and says that he is like his father in this and has beguiled her as his father Theseus did Ariadne.  She further writes, “my body you will see right in the harbour of Athens…though you are harder than is any stone.”  She destroys herself and the legend ends with the warning of Chaucer to be beware of man.

IX) The Legend of Hypermnestra
Danaus and Aegyptus in Greece are brothers. The former has a son called Lynceus and the latter has a daughter named Hypermnestra. The brothers decide to join Lynceus and Hypermnestra in marriage. Hypermnestra is immensely beautiful blessed with Venus, a woman of consciousness and truth gifted by Jupiter but remains so weak and tender, without the grave of Mars, that she couldn't even handle a knife.  On the marriage night, her father enters her bed chamber and threatens her to kill if she doesn't follow his direction that she should give a drop of narcotics to her new husband and kill him in sleep cutting his throat. It is because the father had been forewarned in his dream to face death through one of his nephews.  She weeps and says, “since I am his wife and pledged to loyalty,  ‘tis best for me to die in wifely honesty than be a traitor to live on in shame.”  She is so tender that she could not even kill herself. She embraces him and wakes him up who in fear flees from bed chamber. The cruel father fetters her in prison and here Chaucer leaves the legend unfinished, though hints in the beginning of the tragic death of innocent Hypermnestra in prison.

Tennyson's “A Dream of Fair women" (1833) originally titled “Legend of Fair Women" is based on Chaucer's poem.  The structure of the poem is the same as in Monk’s tale. The command of Alceste in Chaucer's prologue is also found in the “The Fall of Princes”(1431-38) by John Lydgate that is composed of nine books and 36000 lines. Chaucer's Man of law in Canterbury Tales also praises Chaucer and this poem naming it “Seintes Legende of Cupide”. In Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night’s Dream", the story of Thisbe and Pyramas is enacted in Act 1, scene 1 by a group of mechanicals resembling the legend of Thisbe by Chaucer. In fact Chaucer is undoubtedly a great feminist and presents in iambic pentameter all legendary women highly superior to men by their very sacrifice for love or chastity. 

Chaucer's “Troilus and Crisedey”

NET/SLET/TRB STUDY GUIDE
Date: 21.2.2018, Subject:English

This is Chaucer's long epic poem of 8239 lines in rhyme royal completed in 1380s.  It's based on Boccaccio's “Il Filostrato” but Chaucer has reduced the eight books of Boccaccio into 5 books.

Book one begins with the poet’s address to the Fury Tisiphone with a prayer for the lovers who are going to be doomed.  The story begins with the setting of the siege of Troy by the Greeks.  Calkas, father of Cressida foresees the fall of Troy, abandons Troy and joins the Greek camp. Cressida seeks  protection from Hector, the leader of Trojan army and brother of Troilus who are sons of the king of Troy Priam.  Troilus mocks at love and lovers and the God of love grows angry with him and strikes him with irreconcilable love for Cressida whom he sees in the temple of Pallas Athena. He is entangled in love and Pandaras, uncle of Cressida makes a plan for his proposal to Cressida.

Book II starts with an address to Muse of History, Clio.  It is Pandaras who urges Cressida to consider the love of Troilus, otherwise he will commit suicide along with Troilus.  Cressida watches the parade of Troilus through window and muses over the advantages and disadvantages of having love affair. She is in need of protection but at the same time Troilus would mean loss freedom to her. However, in her dream, she witnesses a great white eagle(representing Troilus) that takes her heart and replaces with his own. Pandaras arranged for a meeting for the lovers in the house of Deiphebus, elder brother of Troilus where for the first time Troilus and Cressida meet each other and deeply love-struck.

Book III commences with an address to Venus, the goddess of Love and to the muse of epic poetry Callio.  Now the love develops into a great extent with the plan of Pandaras who urges both to write several letters and respond quickly.  He also invites Cressida on a rainy night for a dinner and makes her stay at his home. He sends Troilus to the same bed chamber and leaves them to spend the night together in bed.  Later he also warns Troilus of the wheel of Fortune that always rotates and may turn against him soon.

Book IV has its opening with an address to Mars, god of war and the furies.  Calkas urges the Greeks to exchange Antenor, a woman prisoner of war for his daughter Cressida.  Both the lovers are upset to hear this.  Hector and Troilus object this.  Troilus also rejects the idea of Pandaras to embark a new love affair with another girl or to elope with Cressida.  Troilus muses over fate whether human choice is an important element in determining one's fortune.  Cressida meets him in a temple and faints with emotion.  By mistaking her to be dead, Troilus tries to stab himself but Cressida awakens and stops him. (A similar scene is present in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet).  Cressida promises him that she will deceive her father in enemy's camp and return to him in ten days.  Troilus parts with her with a sense of foreboding to their reunion.

Book V describes the changes in the mind of Cressida who is now short and uninterested in her replies to Troilus in letters.  Diamedes, the Greek warrior also makes a proposal to her.  On the tenth day, Cressida does not return to Troilus but accepts the love of Diometes who assures to offer protection to her now. Troilus is so upset and in his dream, he sees a boar taking away Cressida from him. The meaning of this dream is unfolded by Cassandra, sister of Troilus that the boar in the dream is none other than new lover of Cressida but Troilus refuses to accept this. Later the boat of Diometes is sized and Troilus finds the brooch gifted to Cressida in the boat and realizes her betrayal.  The Trojan war begins. Troilus vows to kill Diometes in the war but he himself is killed by Achillus.  After death, Troilus is taken to the eighth sphere in the sky and learns the lesson of transience of earthy joys. Thus the story ends with the tragic end of Troilus.

Chaucer makes an apology to the readers for presenting a woman with such a bad reputation. What happened to Cressida and her unfaithfulness? Chaucer does not tell. But the Scottish poet of the 15th century Robert Henryson in his “the Testament of Cresseid” describes the events after her betrayal -how she is abandoned by Diometes, cursed by Venus with leprosy ad begs for alms.  So many critics have found Henderson’s poem as an epilogue to Chaucer's Troilus and Crisedey.   The poem is based on the phrase –“all that is good should come to an end one day.”  Shakespeare has also written a similar one “Troilus and Cressida”  but Cressida in Chaucer presents a realistic view of woman who is equal to man in the medieval period.  But Shakespeare’s Cressida is viewed as an object by Troilus rather than as a human being in the male dominated Elizabethan period, as interpreted by
Raveena Shurgil.

Chaucer's “Parliament of Fowls" (1370s to 1380s)

NET/SLET/TRB Study Guide
Date: 20-02-2018, subject: English

Chaucer's “Parliament of Fowls" :

This is a poem of 699 lines in rhyme royal with the theme of love and 'common profit'. 

With the belief that an old book brings new wisdom, Chaucer takes up an old book and starts reading the dream of Scipio by Cicero in which Scipio the younger visits his friend king of Numidia and there in his sleep he is taken to spheres by his dead grandfather Scipio Africanus who lectures on virtue, the rewards of virtuous man in the afterlife and the immortality of the soul.  He tells him that this life on earth is a kind of death and the real life is after death in heaven. 

Chaucer closes the book and falls asleep. In his dream he is taken by Scipio Africanus, as a reward for reading his poem, to the gate of a kind of beautiful ancient lovers park. Chaucer is afraid of entering the gate because it carries warnings that those who enter will have either happiness and peace or misfortune and unhappiness (that is generally promised for all lovers).  Scipio Africanus says that the warning is only for lovers not for Chaucer who, being a bookworm dreamer, lacks personal love experience. The park has two walls with poems written on them -one wall in gold and the other in black. There are all kinds of beautiful birds, trees and beasts of forest inside. Cupid is forging arrows under a tree near river on the one side and Venus is relaxing on a couch with transparent drape over her on the other side. There is a temple of brass on pillars which are filled with the sighing sounds of lovers and the  spirit of goddess fertility Priapus.

  It's a kind of Shangri la park where no one gets old or sick. Chaucer now sees passing of allegorical characters Pleasure, Deception, Beauty, Youth, Flattery, Desire and Message-sending which are all but love elements.  He now witnesses Dame Nature seated on a beautiful flowery hill surrounded by a parliament of all kinds of birds.  The day is St.Valentine’s Day.

On this lovers day, birds assemble here to choose their mates in the presence of Dame Nature. A female eagle (formel) is courted by three tercels (male eagles)' The debate starts. Each tercel, for hours together, talks of his love and faithfulness to formel to win her love but in vain. Other birds grow impatient since they have less time to choose their mates. Now the newly selected judge, a male falcon suggests that there should be a battle in stead of debate. Goose intervenes and says that formel should choose her mate herself. The unkind cuckoo suggests that all birds should remain single. After a great cacophony, Dame Nature orders silence.  She asks the formel to choose her mate herself but the formel says that it needs one more year to decide. Nature asks the three tercels to patiently wait with faith and love till the next Valentine’s day.  Now, their route being clear,  other birds choose their mates and joyfully sing a roundel.  Chaucer wakes up from his sleep and, not satisfied with his dream, continues to read the book to learn something better.

Chaucer, the earliest feminist, speaks for women’s rights and the female eagle is granted the right to choose her mate on her own choice. Think why Love dispute on the lover’s day takes place and is settled in the park in the universe.  Is not love a binding force of the universe? The formel is , on the other hand, a typical woman in real life who generally takes, of course, more than a year to decide over love. Another notable thing is that birds are here divided by rank just as the medieval society was decided by rank.  Chaucer's involvement in the negotiations of marriage of young Richard  and Anne of Bohemia is also reflected in the poem. As Victoria Rothschild unfolds, this poem is undoubtedly “Chaucer's mirror up to Nature.”

Chaucer's The House of Fame

(II) The House of Fame (1374-1385):
It’s a poem of 2158 lines in three books, an unfinished dream poem in octosyllabics. It’s also Chaucer's last poem in French form but shows his influences by Italian writers like Virgil and Ovid.  First book begins with Chaucer's dream in which he sees himself in a temple of glass that has beautiful art drawn over it. The images of Venus makes Chaucer assume that the temple is hers. Chaucer finds the brass tablet of Aeneid and is reminded of his betrayal to Dido who stabbed herself when he parted with her. Chaucer here lists a number women died out of betrayal by their lovers in Greek mythology. He goes out of the temple to the field and sees a golden eagle alight towards him from the sky.

In the second book, Chaucer is caught and carried by the golden eagle that tells him that it is the servant of Jove(Jupiter) and it has come to reward him for his devotions to Venus by taking him to the house of goddess Fame.  The eagle also explains how fame is spread through sound all over the world.

The third book narrates how Chaucer is landed at the foot of the hill atop of which is the House of Fame that Chaucer enters and sees the goddess Fame with countless tongues, ears, ears and wings at her heel meant for spreading the fame.  She is passing judgement offering fame and infamy to the deserved petitioners.  There are pillars and columns in the House and atop of each pillar stands a famous poet or scholar such as Homer, Virgil and Ovid holding up the fame of his country.  Chaucer leaves the house and is taken by an unnamed man to the spinning house of rumours and hearsay inside which a massive crowd is making noises. Suddenly Chaucer sees the arrival of a man of authority to that house and the poem ends abruptly leaving the identity of the man a mystery.

What a beautiful imagination mixed with reality Chaucer has! The poem can be true inspiration for one who longs for achievements and fame. It also shows his gradual development of narrative skill.
With three books, the poem appears to be a parody of Dante's Divine Comedy and the celebrities in book III in the House of Fame introduce themselves in categories as in Dante's.  The poem is also remembered for the earliest use of terms such as galaxy and milky way. Is Chaucer blowing his own trumpet while taken to the house of Fame or is it his deep understanding of Fame inspired by famous Italian poets? Who is the unidentified man of authority at the end? Is he Richard II whose wedding announced recently then? Voicing for the betrayed women, Chaucer becomes the earliest feminist here. However, as Robert Allan criticizes, “Through the dream of Troy, the contrast between Geffrey and the eagle, and the houses of Fame and Rumour, Chaucer explores the literary artist's indifference to the world of facts”

Chaucer, the Genesis of English Literature (part 1)

NET/SLET/TRB Study Guide
Date: 18th February, 2018

Profile of Chaucer
1.Name – Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400)

2.Contemporary Writers -  William Langland, John Wycliff, John Gower, John Lydgate and Nicholas Love, Italian writers: Petrarch (1304 -74) and Boccaccio (1313-75)

3.Contemporary Rulers and events – Edward III, Rechard II and Henry IV
(I)The Hundred Years War (1337 -53)
(II)The Black Death (1347 – 51)
(III)Peasants Revolt (1381)

4.Chaucer's major works –
(I)Book of the Duchess (1369-72)
(II)The House of fame (1379-80)
(III)Parliament of Foules (1382)
(IV)The Legend of Good Women (1386-88)
(V)Troilus and Criseyde (1391)
(VI)The Canterbury Tales(1380a to 1390s)

(VII)Translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy
(VIII)Translation of French poem: The Romance of the Rose
(IX)Prose : A Treatise on the Astrolabe

5.Chaucer’s Influences –
(I)Travelled to France, Italy and Spain and much influenced by its culture and writers
(II)Chiefly Influenced by the works of Italian poets Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio
(III)Book of Duchess – French Influence, The House of Fame  - French and Italian influence(Virgil and Ovid), Troilus and Criseyde – Italian influence
(IV)Influenced by his active career as a British courtier, soldier and diplomat

6.Chaucer's literary style –
(I)Recognised as Father of English Poetry and Language
(II)Introduced Rhyme Royal – a stanza of seven lines usually in iambic pentameter with ababbcc rhyme scheme
(III)Named as rhyme royal since James I of Scotland used it for his chaucerian poem The Kingis Quaire and later Shakespeare used it in The Rape of Lucrece
(IV)Best known for his powerful description of characters and contemporary life
(V)Being the first great story teller in verse
(VI)His works showing  extraordinary insight into human nature
(VII)Produced works in three languages French, Latin and English
(VIII)Used frame narrative, a literary technique for setting up a story within a story

7.What critics say about Chaucer?
(I)Dryden in his Preface to Fables in 1700: “As he is the Father of English Poetry, so I hold him in the same Degree of Veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil: He is a perpetual Fountain of good Sense;  and admires his work as “Here is God’s Plenty.”

(II)Matthew Arnold in his “Study of Poetry”(1888): “His view of life is large, free, simple, clear and kindly.  He has shown the power to survey the world from a central, a human point of view.” However, Chaucer lacks high and excellent seriousness…..Homer’s criticism of life has it, Shakespeare has it, Dante has it,”

(III)Lord Byron: “Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible;—he owes his celebrity, merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune”

(IV)Edmund Spencer in “The Faerie Queene": Dan Chaucer, well of English undefil'd /On Fame's eternal bead-roll worthy to be fil'd.” and “Dan Geffrey, in whose gentle spright /The pure well-head of poetry did dwell.”

(V)Lord Tennyson in “A Dream of Fair Woman"(1832) :
“The morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.”

8. Critical Summary of  Chaucer’s works:
(I)Book of the Duchess (1368-72):
Chaucer's patron is John of Gaunt whose wife Blanche died in 1368 and the occasion prompted Chaucer to write an elegy on her death. As in most of his poems, Chaucer here falls in sleep and has a dream vision.  Before sleep he reads a book that narrates the story of Ceyx who is lost in the sea.  His lady Alcyone on the shore prays to goddess Juno for a dream vision to know what happened to her husband. Juno summons Morpheus, the God of sleep to inhabit the body of Ceyx and visit Alcyone. Ceyx meets Alcyone and asks her to bury his body to end her sorrow. When she wakes up, Ceyx is gone and Alcyone also does after three days.

Now it's Chaucer's turn who falls in sleep and in his dream finds himself in a chamber in which glasses have the story of Troy and the walls have the story of Romance of the Rose. Following a hunting dog outside, Chaucer enters a forest where he sees a knight dressed in black. On asking about grief, he narrates how he played the game of chess with Fortuna and lost his queen being checkmated.  He also talks about his love affair and the sweet moments he had with his lady “good, fair White" who is dead now. Chaucer consoles the Knight and wakes up from sleep and decides to write his dream in verse. 
It's Chaucer's earliest long dream poet in 1334 lines penned in octosyllabic couplets. The man in black is apparently Chaucer's patron John of Gaunt and the Lady White is his dead wife.  Maintaining the story within a story technique, he reveals his love for the story of Troy and the French poem the Romance of the Rose. However some critics like Edward I. Condran read this poem as “a plea for patronage.”