Is The Book of the Duchess by Geoffrey Chaucer a Consolation?

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The Book of the Duchess by Geoffrey Chaucer is a medieval dream vision written between the years 1368 and 1372 to commemorate the death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and the wife of John of Gaunt, who died during the plague. The dream vision typically features a man who gains knowledge and truth that is not normally available in his waking state. The Book of the Duchess begins with a sleepless narrator complaining of his insomnia and reading the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone. He then falls asleep and, in his dream, tries to console a bereaved knight who is deep in sorrow due to the death of his beloved lady named White. Overwhelming evidence suggests that White is an allegorical figure of Blanche, and coupled with the fact that Chaucer uses the first person narrative, the dreamer’s attempt to console the knight is commonly read as a reflection of Chaucer the writer’s effort to offer John of Gaunt consolation. Thus, the poem is often categorized as a piece of Consolatio that comforts someone who suffers from a great loss through relieving their grief. Chaucer’s inclusion of the tale of Ceyx and Alcyone, in which Ceyx is drowned in a sea voyage and Alcyone takes her own life due to sadness, creates another layer of parallel characters as Alcyone, the knight, and John of Gaunt are all tied together by what Fichte refers to ‘a common emotional experience’ of mourning over a deceased lover (56). Chaucer uses classical sources and their association with wisdom to convey consolatory messages in hopes of easing the pain of the bereaved, firstly through his recount of Ceyx’s message to Alcyone after he died and secondly by characterizing the dreamer as a therapist after the fashion of Lady Philosophy in The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. However, despite Chaucer’s utterance of these consolatory messages, their effect is limited. The dreamer’s inability to understand the depth of Alcyone and the knight’s pain undermines the validity of his consolation. Furthermore, the continuation, or even intensification of sorrow as a result of the attempts at consolation in both Alcyone and the knight’s cases demonstrates that consolation is unable to mitigate the unspeakable agony of losing a loved one. Notwithstanding, the process of reliving past glory reminds both Alcyone and the knight, hence John of Gaunt, of their bliss of having once possessed happiness, and this acknowledgment might be the most comforting consolation one can receive. As such, it is unwise to place The Book of the Duchess under the category of Consolatio without acknowledging the complexities springing from the consolatory messages Chaucer put forth and the way they are presented.