Publisher's Synopsis
An accessible and informative introduction to the life and work of Geoffrey Chaucer and Middle English poetry, by way of a detailed analysis of Chaucer's poem "The Legend of Cleopatra" (from his larger work "The Legend of Good Women"). The poem is presented in its Middle English, translated line-by-line, and then given in three forms in Modern English, i.e.: as unrhyming couplets, as rhyming iambic tetrameter couplets, and as rhyming imabic pentameter couplets. The influences upon Chaucer determining why and how he wrote "The Legend of Cleopatra" are examined, and an an assessment is made of whether or not it is a poetic success.
