In 1359, Geoffrey Chaucer took part in the siege of Reims; within the city walls, Guillaume de Machaut was experiencing this blockade from the other side, argues Marion Turner in her biography of the English author (73). A decade or so later, Chaucer wrote the Book of the Duchess in commemoration of the deceased wife of John of Gaunt, his lifelong patron. A reworking of Machaut's Fonteinne Amoureuse, Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne, and other francophone sources, the poem at once borrows from and cunningly transforms its models. This tantalizing juxtaposition of Chaucer's career and creative paths is made possible by the book's focus on space as its organizing principle. It thus joins a growing body of scholarship that explores the locations and trajectories of medieval literature. Since life unfolds over time as well as space, Turner's narrative produces fascinating chronotopes. In particular, she revisits London in a...

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