ABSTRACT
John Lydgate began his literary career as a Chaucerian and turned out the kind of poetry which people associate with the Middle Ages is undeniable. His first important poem, the Complaint of the Black Knight, is illustrative in this respect. The influence of the Troilus on the Black Knight is perhaps more direct and somewhat stronger than has been realized thus far. As Lydgate writes about unhappy love, it is only normal that he should turn for inspiration to the greatest poem on the subject. Students of the Complaint of the Black Knight have detected many further Chaucerian elements therein, and something of its overall quality may possibly be inferred from the fact that it was at one time ascribed to Chaucer. Probably the two mediaeval literary conventions which seem most surprising to the modern mind are the denial of authorship.
