Chaucer and the Poems of 'Ch'

This particular collection of French lyrics made in France in the late fourteenth century, University of Pennsylvania MS 15, is the most likely repository of Chaucer's French poems. It is the largest manuscript anthology extant of fourteenth-century French lyrics in the formes fixes with by far the largest number of works of unknown authorship.

Although Chaucer is now best known for his English verse, he is believed to have composed a number of works in French early in his career. James Wimsatt proposes the fifteen lyrics in University of Pennsylvania MS 15, headed by the initials “Ch,” are likely by Chaucer. Composed around 1360, these French love lyrics employ three formes fixes song forms, most frequently the three-part balade, the five-stanza chanson royal, and the eight-line rondel. They feature highly conventional paeans, prayers, complaints, and advice about courtly love, including ample exempla from classical, biblical, and medieval romance sources. The “Ch” poet’s concentrated use of personification, striking extended metaphors, and elegant integration of the refrain comprise, according to Wimsatt, particularly Chaucerian touches. This edition presents the “Ch” poet’s lyrics in facing-page translation, and appendices offer the full contents of the Penn manuscript, related works, and an essay identifying Penn’s likely compiler as Oton de Granson, Chaucer’s French contemporary and fellow poet.