SOURCE: “Andreas Capellanus and the Gate in the Parlement of Foules,” in Romance Notes, Vol. IX, No. 2, Spring, 1968, pp.325-30.

In the following essay, Garbáty explains how the meaning of a portion of Chaucer's poem Parlement of Foules can be clarified by examining analogous passages by Capellanus.

One of the few critical points, in Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, about which all scholars seem to agree is the fact that the poem deals with some aspect of the theme of love. Thereafter historians go one way, the critics another. The interpretation by Charles O. McDonald is among the most interesting and valid of the latter group. The conflict in the Parlement, according to McDonald, is between natural love and courtly love, and this division, which runs through the whole work, is already basically structured by the gate with the two inscriptions before which Geoffrey stands in indecision. “This...