Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle
Say ‘medieval literature’ and a few names will spring to mind: Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, the anonymous author of Beowulf. But where does one start exploring the wonderful and colourful world of medieval writing? Here are our ten recommendations, which give a sense of the rich panoply of medieval literature.
A brief overview and summary of Confessio Amantis, John Gower’s medieval poem
The most famous English poem of the entire fourteenth century is Geoffrey Chaucer‘s The Canterbury Tales, a vast collection of stories borrowed from European medieval and classical sources. But there is another English poem from the fourteenth century, which is also a collection of stories told in verse, which is not as well known as Chaucer’s great work. It was written by Chaucer’s friend and rival poet, John Gower (c. 1330-1408), and its title is Confessio Amantis.
Some fun facts about medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer
1. One of Chaucer’s earliest poems was ‘An ABC’, an acrostic which he wrote for people to use in prayer. Like much of Chaucer’s work, ‘An ABC‘ was a Middle English translation of a French work, in this case a prayer written by Guillaume de Deguileville. Each of the 26 eight-line stanzas begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. Probably written in the 1370s, the poem shows Chaucer’s art in its early stages of development. (Chaucer had been born in London around 1343 – the precise date of his birth is not known.)