Not to be confused with the 12th-century Persian poem The Conference manly valentines day the Birds. Oruch’s survey of the literature finds no association between Valentine and romance prior to Chaucer. He concludes that Chaucer is likely to be “the original mythmaker in this instance. The poem begins with the narrator reading Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis in the hope of learning some “certeyn thing”.
William Caxton’s early print of 1478 is also considered authoritative, for it reproduces the text of a manuscript now considered lost. Concerning the author of the poem, there is no doubt that it was written by Geoffrey Chaucer, for so he tells us twice in his works. And the Parlement of Foules, as I gesse”. Seint Valentynes day of the Parlement of Briddes”.
A more difficult question is that of date. Early criticism of the poem, as far as the first decades of the 20th century, relied mainly on the different interpretations of the text—comparing the fight for the female eagle with royal betrothals of the age—to produce a date of composition for the poem. The third date is easily discarded since we know that the poem is already mentioned as composed in the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women. Edited from numerous manuscripts by the Rev.
Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February”. The complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer. London: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford. Manuscript tradition Order of The Canterbury Tales Hengwrt Chaucer Ellesmere Chaucer Harley MS.
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