... ). This bemoaning of Fortune's vagaries takes the medieval literary form of a complaint (a "compleynt"), which was usually a short, sometimes musical poem, sung by a lover about his loss of a love, essentially a lyric genre. But Chaucer, while remaining true to the contemporary style, also asserts Boethius's older, more pious reflection (buttressed by the reference to Socrates) that the self-possessed person should be above ... the time did the same. This poem, a slightly rough but still brilliantly conceived example of the dream-vision genre, is a good example of Chaucer's flexibility a...

• Word Count: 5753
• Approx Pages: 23
• Grade Level: High School