Poetry from Chaucer to Spenser

Introduction.

1. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400):.

From The Canterbury Tales:.

The General Prologue.

The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale.

The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale.

2. William Langland (fl.1375-80):.

The Vision of Piers Plowman (C-Text) (extracts).

Prologue.

Passus III.

Passus V.

Passus VI.

3. The Gawain-Poet (fl. 1390):.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Fit 3.

4. Robert Henryson (c. 1430-c. 1505):.

The Testament of Cresseid.

The Fables.

The Fox and the Wolf.

The Wolf and the Wether.

5. William Dunbar (c. 1456-c. 1515):.

Meditation in Winter.

Christ in Triumph.

The Golden Targe (extracts).

The Treatise of the Two Married Women and the Widow (extracts).

âTimor Mortis Conturbat Me'.

6. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42):.

âThe longe love, that in my thought doeth harbor'.

âWho-so list to hunt, I knowe where is an hynde'.

âFarewell, Love, and all thy lawes for ever'.

âMy galy charged with forgetfulnes'.

âMadame, withouten many wordes';.

âThey fle from me that sometyme did me seke'.

âWhat no, perdy, ye may be sure!'.

âMarvaill no more all-tho'.

âTho I cannot your crueltie constrain'.

âTo wish and want and not obtain'.

âSome-tyme I fled the fyre that me brent'.

âThe furyous gonne is his rajing yre'.

âMy lute, awake! perfourme the last'.

âIn eternum I was ons determed'.

âHevyn and erth and all that here me plain'.

âTo cause accord or to agre'.

âYou that in love finde lucke and habundaunce'.

âWhat rage is this? what furour of what kynd?'.

âIs it possible?'.

âForget not yet the tryde entent'.

âBlame not my lute for he must sownde'.

âWhat shulde I saye'.

âSpight hath no powre to make me sadde'.

âI abide and abide and better abide'.

âStond who-so list upon the slipper toppe'.

âThroughout the world, if it wer sought'.

âIn court to serve decked with freshe aray'.

7. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47):.

âWhen raging love with extreme payne'.

âThe soote season, that bud and blome furth bringes'.

âSet me wheras the sonne doth perche the grene'.

âLove, that doth raine and live within my thought'.

âAlas, so all thinges nowe do holde their peace'.

âGeve place, ye lovers, here before'.

Epitaph for Wyatt.

8. Edmund Spenser (1552-99):.

From The Shepherd's Calender.

January.

Index of titles and first lines.