The flower and the leaf by Geoffrey Chaucer and E. Harwood
The Floure and the Leafe is an anonymous Middle English allegorical poem in 595 lines of rhyme royal, written around 1470. During the 17th, 18th, and most of the 19th century it was mistakenly believed to be the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, and was generally considered to be one of his finest poems. The name of the author is not known but the poem presents itself as the work of a woman,
and some critics are inclined to take this at face value. The poet was certainly well-read, there being a number of echoes of earlier writers in the poem, including Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, John Gower, Andreas Capellanus, Guillaume de Lorris, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, and the authors of the "Lai du Trot" and the Kingis Quair. (This summary is from Wikipedia.)
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About this eBook
| Dubious author | Chaucer, Geoffrey, 1343?-1400 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Harwood, E. (Edith), 1866-1926 |
| LoC No. | 55050521 |
| Title | The flower and the leaf |
| Original Publication | London: Edward Arnold, 1902. |
| Note | Formerly attributed to Chaucer. |
| Note | Wikipedia page about this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Floure_and_the_Leafe |
| Credits | Mairi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Summary | The Floure and the Leafe is an anonymous Middle English allegorical poem in 595 lines of rhyme royal, written around 1470. During the 17th, 18th, and most of the 19th century it was mistakenly believed to be the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, and was generally considered to be one of his finest poems. The name of the author is not known but the poem presents itself as the work of a woman, and some critics are inclined to take this at face value. The poet was certainly well-read, there being a number of echoes of earlier writers in the poem, including Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, John Gower, Andreas Capellanus, Guillaume de Lorris, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, and the authors of the "Lai du Trot" and the Kingis Quair. (This summary is from Wikipedia.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500 |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78062 |
| Release Date | Feb 27, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 5083 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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