Geoffrey Chaucer's poem "The Duchess's Book" was written between the years 1369 and 1372. The poem is a product of Chaucer's French period. This work was written for Chaucer's book. The main patron, John of Gaunt, after the death of his first wife, Blanche. Initially, the poem was known as "The Death of Blaunche the Duchess" and was the first elegy by an English lady. The setting of the poem is a dream motif. Structured in octosyllabic couplets, Chaucer's use of the dream motif contributes to the poem's theme of the brevity of love, the absurdity of the dreamer, and spring. Say No to Plagiarism Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should”. t Be Banned'?Get the original essayIt was not by mistake or accident that Chaucer implemented the dream motif in "The Book of the Duchess." The dream represents a disconnection from reality; otherwise, Chaucer would have offended John of Gaunt by writing a false statement about his wife's death. The dream motif also gives Chaucer the freedom to write a creative and seductive play. are solely the creation of the dreamer. The action that takes place in a dream cannot be disputed by anyone else because it is what the dreamer created. Therefore, using the dream motif opens the door to many possibilities for the writer and the characters. of the work. Although the overall subject of the poem is the acceptance of loss and the uncontrollability of loss and death, the brevity of love seems to evoke loss in the poem. When we are introduced to the dreamer, we learn that he is an insomniac and. suffers from an unrequited love affair. The dreamer cannot understand sleep or the fading lover who can heal him. The dreamer begins to read the story of Ceyx and Alcyone, and it intrigues him because it is a romance. The dreamer continues the story because it is a way for him to cling to the idea of ​​love. While reading the story with the dreamer, the audience learns that Alcyone lost her husband and she cannot let go of him because of her love for him. Ceyx and Alcyone is a story within a story in which Chaucer also implements the dream motif. Alcyone, stricken with grief, finally falls asleep after crying to Juno: "Quod she to Juno, her goddess, 'Help me out of your distress'" (109-110). Juno calls Morpheus, the god of sleep, to help her. close Alcyone by introducing Ceyx in a dream in which Ceyx tells Alcyone to let go of her grief. The story of Ceyx and Alcyone is just a distraction because the poem itself doesn't begin until the end of the story. The narrator and the dreamer are two different characters, although at first glance the audience sees them as one. The narrator tells us a story and then wakes up in a dream after falling asleep, thus moving us from the narrator to the dreamer. narrator, we learn that he is in a melancholic state, suffers from chronic insomnia and is delusional and depressed. He wonders why he is still alive since nature usually calls the end to any creature so full of sorrow and lacking in sleep. John Rivers' theory that "the poem is a dream vision in which the poet-narrator falls asleep preoccupied with his own situation and has an educational experience in the dream" (Rivers 565). The dreamer's thoughts are in vain and he pays no attention to his surroundings. The narrator eventually falls asleep after reading the story and falls into a dream. Aware of the narrator's state of insomnia, the motif of the dream contributes to the narrator's absurdity. The audience is as ignorant as the dreamer, for we learn like him, and the poem unfolds before us as it unfolds before him. The dreamer is.