This Norton Critical Edition is intended both for students just beginning their acquaintance with Chaucer and for those coming to what are sometimes referred to as his "minor poems"--his dream visions, short lyrics,complaints--for a deeper knowledge of the poet after reading his masterworks, the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. Because beginning readers of Middle English form an important part of my audience, I provide extensive glosses of all unfamiliar words, expressions, and constructions, and translate both first and subsequent uses of difficult words unless they are found within a few lines; sometimes I offer more than one translation of a specific word to give the reader a sense of its semantic range and context. ...

This Norton Critical Edition presents Chaucer’s four dream visions and selected shorter poems and is suitable for both beginning and advanced students. The texts are extensively glossed and are accompanied by individual introductions and explanatory annotations. A lightly regularized system of spellings has been adopted. No prior knowledge of Chaucer is assumed.

“Contexts” connects the poems to their classical and medieval foundations and includes works by Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Boethius, Dante, and Boccaccio, among others.

From the wealth of scholarly work available, the editor has chosen for “Criticism” six essays that address the poems’ central themes. Contributors include Charles Muscatine, A. C. Spearing, R. T. Lenaghan, Richard Firth Green, Elaine Tuttle Hansen, and Steven Kruger.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Preface

A Quick Course in Chaucer's Language

The Texts of Dream Visions and Other Poems

　THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS

 THE HOUSE OF FAIVIE

　 Book 1

　 Book 2

　 Book 3

 THE PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS

 THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN

The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women

The Legendary:

  Cleopatra

  Thisbe

  Dido

  Hypsipyle and Medea

  Luerece

  Ariadne

  Philomela

  Phyllis

  Hypermnestra

 ANELIDA AND ARCITE

 SHORT POEMS

　　  An ABC

　　  Chaucer's Words to Adam. His Own Scribe

　　  Merciless Beauty

　　  To Rosemounde

　　  Truth

　　  Gentilesse

　　  Lack of Steadfastness

　　  Envoy to Scogan

　　  Envoy to Bukton

　　  The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse

Contexts

Ruth Evans · From Chaucer in Cyberspace: Medieval

Technologies of Memory and the House of Fame

Publius Virgilius Maro ("Virgil") · From the Aeneid

Publius Ovidius Naso ("Ovid") · From the Heroides

　　　·From the Metamorphoses

Marcus Tullius Cicero · From Scipio's Dream

　　Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius · From the Commentary on

 Scipio's Dream

　　Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · From the Consolation of Philosophy

　　Alain de Lille · From the Complaint of Nature

　　Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun · From the Romance of the Rose

Dante Alighieri · From the Divine Comedy

　 Guillaume de Machaut · From the Fountain of Love

　 Giovanni Boccaccio · From the Book of Theseus (Il Teseide)

Criticism

Charles Muscatine · From Chaucer's Early Poems

A. C. Spearing · [The Parliament of Fowls as Dream-Poetry]

R. T. Lenaghan · From Chaucer's Circle of Gentlemen and Clerks

Richard Firth Green · Chaucer's Victimized Women

Elaine Tuttle Hansen · The Feminization of Men in

Chaucer's Legend of Good Women

Steven Kruger · From Medical and Moral Authority in the

Late Medieval Dream

Geoffrey Chaucer: A Chronology

SeLected Bibliography