Common Profit and Political Community in Chaucer's The Parliament of Fowls

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Parliament of Fowls asks its narrator and its readers to weigh what one owes others and vice versa both in romance and in living in a political and social community. However, the dramatic and inconclusive nature of the poem makes those answers unclear. This thesis explores the stakes of this question with a look at historical and social contexts including medieval conceptions of natural law and the genre of courtly love.