Dream Poetry and Minor Works

Before Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, he attempted several dream visions: Book of the Duchess, a memorial of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, for her widower, John of Gaunt; The Parliament of Fowls, the first Valentine’s Day poem in English in which the birds gather to choose their mates; The House of Fame, a literary investigation of fame, rumor, and reputation; The Legend of Good Women, a collection of legends, or quasi-saints’ lives, of women from classical antiquity, retold by the fictional Chaucer as a sort of penance for defaming women in his earlier works. These works are collected here with twenty-one minor poems, all of which show the wit and style of one of the world’s great artists.