The structure and context of The Legend of Good Women is not as straight forward as Chaucer’s other works, and it was especially uncommon for Chaucer to write on this topic. Chaucer the narrator’s conversation with the God of Love and his Queen, Alceste might as well be a representation of his own conscious thoughts and exchanges. Yet, it is my belief that Chaucer treated the women in his poems no different, if at least, not as horribly as his contemporaries did. Perhaps the dream allusion is a metaphor for the guilt that he maybe felt for presenting women as he did. The most striking line was essentially, “But nevertheless answer me this now, why would you not also speak well of women, as you have spoken evilly?”. He is even accused of not knowing what he was writing when he wrote Troilus and Criseyde; was he believable as an author on love?
Was Chaucer afraid that his words would come back to hurt him, as far as
finding love goes? It is true that we are not fully aware of Chaucer’s personal life, so maybe there were repercussions for his words. Even so, it was not uncommon for Chaucer to poke fun at himself, or maybe this poem is an example of his waning of desire to write, as The Legend of Good Women was published after his more famous works.