Note 509 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 5)

Text in "Complete Works," vol. iii. It is divided into five books and written in stanzas of seven lines, rhyming a b a b b c c. See the different texts of this poem published by the Chaucer Society; also Kitredge, "Chaucer's Language in his Troilus," Chaucer Society, 1891. For a comparison between the English and the Italian texts see Rossetti "Troylus and Cressida, compared with Boccaccio's Filostrato," Chaucer Society, 1875. About one-third of Chaucer's poem is derived from Boccaccio. It is dedicated to Gower and to "philosophical Strode" (see above, p. 290), both friends of the poet.