“To Rosamond” is a love poem written by the medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer is best known for his long-form poems, especially The Canterbury Tales. At three short stanzas, "To Rosamond" is strikingly brief in comparison. However, it preserves many of Chaucer’s signature characteristics as a writer. The poem alludes to French literary culture, which fascinated Chaucer throughout his life. Although it starts off like a typical love poem, by the end it reads more like a parody of the genre. In this it resembles the often humorous and satirical tone of The Canterbury Tales. It also resembles another long poem by Chaucer, “The Parliament of Fowls,” which mocks the insincerity of courtly love.
"To Rosamond" was only discovered in the late nineteenth century by the scholar William Skeat. He was studying a fifteenth-century manuscript, and found the poem written on the “flyleaf,” or a blank page at the beginning or end of a book. Someone who owned the manuscript probably copied "To Rosamond" onto the flyleaf because they saw the blank space and didn’t want to waste valuable parchment. To this day, this informal note is the only surviving version of the poem, so we’re lucky to be able to read it at all.
Ever since the poem was discovered, critics have disagreed about many aspects of it. First of all, they’ve been unable to determine when in Chaucer’s career the poem was written. Some people think this was written when he was still young, before he attempted the more epic scale of The Canterbury Tales and his other long poems. However, others believe it may have been written as late as 1396, just four years before Chaucer died. It’s impossible to know for sure, because the version we have is just a copy from an earlier manuscript.
Similarly, critics have had a hard time determining who the poet is addressing. Is Rosamond a lover, or just a lady spotted briefly from across the room? Might the poem be intended to praise the King’s wife, or even to describe an old man’s playful affection for a little girl? All of these possibilities have been argued for. Finally, critics are divided on how sincere Chaucer is being. Some people have seen the poem as an earnest expression of love, suggesting that what seems odd to us might just come down to cultural difference. However, given Chaucer’s many parodic poems, it seems more likely that the poem is teasing to some extent. Whether that teasing is the point of the poem, or combined with a more genuine expression of love, is a matter for continuing debate.
