In  The Book of the Duchess, the poet is introduced in the first person. ... With "To lytel while oure blysse lasteth" [too little while our bliss lasts] (line 211), he leaves her, echoing a theme of this and other poems in Chaucer's love-poetry oeuvre. ... It can be considered that everything that comes after the proem is the elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, or is in praise of the poet's patron, the Duchess's husband, John of Gaunt. ... The complaint details how his lady-love, whom he "loved with al my might" (line 478), has been lost. ... At last the dreamer understa...

• Word Count: 5753
• Approx Pages: 23
• Grade Level: High School

The poet compares himself to the yews and so to the death, I think because these animals live underground, and as human being they born and die; moreover he envies "the sullen tree" and "for thy stubborn hardihood" because the tree does not die and in my opinion he imagines to free himself from hishuman nature, represented by the blood, and therefore incorporating himself into nature. ... In my opinion winter represents the death of nature, but the difference is that nature regenerates, whereas human being only dies. ...

• Word Count: 5237
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School