#56 The Book of the Duchess

I haven't read this dream/vision poem of Chaucer's for a long long time.  And to be honest I can't remember anything but the end, where Chaucer wakes up with his head in a book.  This book was about a woman who was pining away for her lost husband.  So Chaucer dreams of a man who has lost his woman and tries to console him.  The death of his lady is shrouded in a metaphor of chess, so is uncertain.  The imagery at the beginning of the dream is extremely idyllic, and may be the best moment of Chaucer writing something buccolic.  The poem was about 1330 lines long, but I imagine in about a year I will forget this poem again and have to re-read it.  It wasn't a bad poem, far from it.   As a dream poem it exceeds other poems of this genre by giving a Freudian clue as to why the dream was happening, his book he was reading.  I will always concede that Chaucer is a clever fellow.