Geoffrey Chaucer: Love Visions (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Geoffrey Chaucer (Author), Brian Stone (Editor, Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 1983

Spanning Chaucer's working life, these four poems build on the medieval convention of love visions' - poems inspired by dreams, woven into rich allegories about the rituals and emotions of courtly love. In "The Book of the Duchess", the most traditional of the four, the dreamer meets a widower who has loved and lost the perfect lady, and "The House of Fame" describes a dream journey in which the poet meets with classical divinities. Witty, lively and playful, "The Parliament of Birds" details an encounter with the birds of the world in the Garden of Nature as they seek to meet their mates, while "The Legend of Good Women" sees Chaucer being censured by the God of Love, and seeking to make amends, for writing poems that depict unfaithful women. Together, the four create a marvellously witty, lively and humane self-portrait of the poet.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in London to a wine merchant, Geoffrey Chaucer (c1340-1400) became a royal servant and travelled as a diplomat to France, Spain and Italy. As well as being famed for his translations, his own work includes Troilus and Criseyde, The Book of the Duchess and The Legend of Good Women

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (August 25, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140444084
• ISBN-13: 978-0140444087
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The God of Love his eyes upon me cast ...", March 7, 2004

By 

"acominatus" (Johnson City, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geoffrey Chaucer: Love Visions (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

This review relates to the volume -Geoffrey Chaucer:
Love Visions/The Book of the Duchess; The House of
Fame; The Parliament of Birds; The Legend of Good
Women-, Penguin Classics, Translated with an Introduction
and Notes by Brian Stone. 1983. 262 pp.
This volume is a modern English translation of Geoffrey
Chaucer's four "love visions." As Brian Stone says in
the Introduction: "The four long poems presented in
translation span nearly the whole of Chaucer's working
life. *** Chaucer was the fourteenth-century [Middle]
English poet who, basing his work on that of his French
and Italian peers and also, like them, on the work of
the classical and late Latin poets, created highly
original narrative poems, with a skill in story-telling
in which he equalled , if not surpassed his masters.
Ovid, whose outlook on women and sense of the great
variety of life including the absurd, make him of the
ancients most akin to Chaucer, may beat him for
sensuousness and richness of detail, and Virgil and
Dante for high seriousness and epic scope, but Chaucer
offers a subtle humour which enhances the seriousness
and complexity of what he has to say, as well as a
kaleidoscopic range of tone and subject matter."
Each of the four poems has an excellent Introduction.
The four poems are: "The Book of the Duchess"; "The
Book of Fame" (which is subdivded into 3 Books); "The
Parliament of Birds [Fowles]" (the shortest of the
poems); and "The Legend of Good Women", which has
a Prologue; then meeting of Chaucer with an angry
God Of Love who threatens to take revenge on Chaucer
for writing poorly about the powers of Love, and
causing wise people to withdraw from Love's rule,
thinking that "a person is a perfect fool/Who loves
intensely with a burning fire." Then Queen
Alcestis intervenes on Chaucer's behalf and tells
the God of Love to be "more reasonable" (a lovely
bit of irony). Chaucer has offended the God of

Love by his translation of -The Romance of the
Rose-, and his writing of the poem of -Troilus
and Criseyde- in which he portrayed love and
women in a poor light. In compensation, Chaucer
awakens from his dream concerning this meeting
with the God of Love and Alcestis and begins his
"Legend of Good Women", which is subdivided into the
sections titled: "The Legend of Cleopatra, Queen
of Egypt, Martyr"; "The Legend of Babylonian Thisbe,
Martyr"; "The Legend of Dido, Queen of Carthage,
Martyr"; "The Legends of Hypsipyle and Medea,
Martyrs"; "The Legend of Roman Lucrece, Martyr";
"The Legend of Ariadne of Athens"; "The Legend of
Philomela"; "The Legend of Phyllis"; "The Legend of
Hypermnestra." There are excellent Notes from page
233 253, a Select Bibliography, and an Index of
Proper Names.
These works are very accessible and highly enjoyable
and insightful. For many who might "pass up" on
Chaucer because of the "Middle English difficulty,"
this volume will soothe all your fears and delight
your intelligence and your sensibilities. For these
Modern English translations are excellent, and are
in poetic format [not prose], but they are not
stilted or hard to understand.
-- Robert Kilgore.