Geoffrey Chaucer was commissioned by Gaunt to write a poem after Blanche's death which was titled The Book of the Duchess. The poem tells the story of the poet’s dream. Wandering a wood, the poet discovers a knight clothed in black, and inquires of the knight’s sorrow. The knight, meant to represent John of Gaunt, is mourning a terrible tragedy, which mirrors Gaunt's own extended mourning for Blanche.
Read more about this topic: Blanche Of Lancaster
Famous quotes containing the words book and/or duchess:
“A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land. They must not yield wheat and potatoes, but must themselves be the unconstrained and natural harvest of their author’s lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)