Consolation in the Book of the DuchessIn "The Book of the Duchess," Geoffrey Chaucer draws close parallels between the poet's sleeplessness and the knight's grief. In showing the Knight's complete lack of interest in the hunt, combined with his general lethargy, Chaucer effectively compares the Knight's apathy to that experienced by the Narrator himself and his feelings of loss of energy and enthusiasm. of the Duchess”, seeks only to revitalize her suffering and offers very little in-depth investigation into the roots of the Narrator and the Knight's prolonged state of desperation. Instead, as much as possible, it seems that Chaucer ignores any explanation of the causes, but continues to provoke the reader's curiosity about the reasons for the insomnia, without ever fully answering whether consolation found or rejected. Through these parallels and juxtapositions, the reader can begin to discover, understand, and contemplate the mechanisms of consolation as it functions throughout the poem, the poet's ability to pay attention to nothing, "as it comes or goes" (Chaucer 7), is mirrored by the Knight's failure to notice the poet's approach in the garden (Chaucer 500-510); the reason is that both characters have completely separated themselves, at least psychologically, from their worldly environment while the Knight has distanced himself from the court and immersed himself in "his thoughts" (Chaucer 504), the Narrator suggests that he too has freed himself of the external world that has become illusory for him (Chaucer 12-13). ok, a huge tree”, which excludes the beauty of the garden that surrounds it (Chaucer 446-447 The oak, symbol of the strength of Nature... at the center of the sheet... Consolation of Philosophy). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Print.Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Duchess' Book." In Chaucer's Riverbank. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987.Freidman. Giovanni Blocco. “The dreamer, the puppy and consolation in the “Book of the Duchess”. The Chaucer Review 3.3 (1969): 145-62. Print.Hoffman, Frank G. “The Dream and the Book: Chaucer's Dream Poetry, Faculty Psychology, and the Poetics of Recombination.” 2004. Print.Philips, Helen. “Structure and consolation in the “Book of the Duchess”. The Chaucer Review 16.2 (1981): 107-18. Print.Symons, Dana M., Consortium for Teaching the Middle Ages and Western Michigan University. Publications of the Medieval Institute. Chaucer's Dream Visions and Complaints. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, College of Arts & Sciences, Western Michigan University, 2004. Print.