It tells them a lot about the rules of life. The Ancress is a prose work mainly written for religious women. Mostly the Middle English prose was religious in nature. It is a story related to the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. This alliteration can be seen in another poem, as well as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It describes the sorrows of the poor in alliterative lines. Langland sadly says in his poem how most people prefer the false treasures of this world than the true treasures of heaven. The characters in this poem are not as real as Chaucer’s. It looks a lot older than Chaucer’s rhymed verse, though they are contemporary writers. Chaucer also wrote Troylus and Cryseyde and The Legend of Good Women.Īnother poet of Chaucer’s time was William Langland, who wrote The Vision of Piers the Plowman. One of the most enjoyable characters is wife of Bath. Chaucer’s characters are true-to-life and they represent their own class and profession. They represent the English life and the various professions like the knight, the merchant, the lawyer, the cook, the priest, and the plowman. There are more than twenty stories, but the descriptions of the characters are much more important than their stories. It is a collection of stories told by pilgrims on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. His great work was The Canterbury Tales, which is in about 17000 lines. He is one of the most skillful and attractive English writers of the entire history of English literature. The greatest poet of this period was Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English poetry.

Middle english poetry