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Geoffrey Chaucer: Love Visions (Penguin Classics)

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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.