The Floure and the Leafe ; The Assembly of Ladies ; The Isle of Ladies

Download or read book The Floure and the Leafe ; The Assembly of Ladies ; The Isle of Ladies written by Geoffrey Chaucer and published by Medieval Institute Publications. This book was released on 1990 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An asset to any study of gender in medieval England, this volume contains three poems that complement each other in their treatments of relations between the sexes. The Floure and the Leafe explores the courtly imagery of the flower and leaf, wherein the flower symbolizes the fickleness and shallow attraction characteristic of men, compared to the evergreen persistence of the leaf, likened to the long-suffering of women. Meanwhile, The Assembly of Ladies recounts the activities of a group of women while describing the differences between the sexes. Finally, the dream poem The Isle of Ladies tells of a male dreamer's interactions with the ladies of an all-female island. All of the poems include contextualizing introductions and helpful glosses; there is also an extensive glossary for the entire volume, rendering the volume useful to not only beginning students of Middle English but also to more advanced students of this topic.