ABSTRACT
The formal disposition of the Legend of Good Women insists upon the absolute centrality of the narrator as actual and potential author-figure, this manifest and ‘autobiographical’ emphasis in turn presenting the ‘self-conscious reader’ with a certain polarization of the author’s interests and poetic technique. In the light of John Shirley’s unfailing interest in Geoffrey Chaucer in his social context, we will look in vain for his comments on the court origin of the Legend. It is difficult to believe that he would have been wholly ignorant of its existence. Mr J. A. Burrow has reminded the prevailing lightness of style in the Legend, its ‘chamber-music’, ‘sophistication’, ‘the manner of the dit amoreux with its superficial use of allegories’. This may appear to be the prevailing mode of composition, but this new Chaucerian-Gallic sophistication accommodates a variety of alterations of style and textures.
