# Anelida and Arcite > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Anelida_and_Arcite > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Anelida_and_Arcite.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anelida_and_Arcite > Source revision: 1257527818 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer This article needs more citations. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Anelida and Arcite" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) A page from [William Caxton](/source/William_Caxton)'s edition of *Anelida and Arcite*, dated 1477 ***Anelida and Arcite*** is a 357-line English poem by [Geoffrey Chaucer](/source/Geoffrey_Chaucer). It tells the story of Anelida, queen of [Armenia](/source/Armenia) and her wooing by false Arcite from [Thebes, Greece](/source/Thebes%2C_Greece).[1] Although relatively short, it is a poem with a complex structure, with an invocation and then the main story. The story is made up of an introduction and a complaint by Anelida which is in turn made up of a [proem](/source/Preface), a [strophe](/source/Strophe), [antistrophe](/source/Antistrophe) and a conclusion. After the complaint there are a few lines which continue the story, but these may have been added by a later scribe. Like many of Chaucer's works it ends abruptly, and may be unfinished. The date of the poem's composition is not known but it is often placed in the late 1370s. The poem is never mentioned by Chaucer himself but scholars do not usually doubt his authorship. It is attributed to him in three manuscripts and by the poet [John Lydgate](/source/John_Lydgate). The poem uses some of elements of the *[Teseida](/source/Teseida)* of [Boccaccio](/source/Giovanni_Boccaccio), and the *[Thebaid](/source/Thebaid_(Latin_poem))* of the Roman poet [Statius](/source/Statius), works which Chaucer would use again as a basis for *[The Knight's Tale](/source/The_Knight's_Tale)*. This influence of [Italian literature](/source/Italian_literature) is a point of transition from Chaucer's earlier works which were mainly influenced by [French poetry](/source/French_poetry). The poem itself is a rather ungainly mixture of the two traditions, with an epic invocation typical of Italian poetry giving way to a much less epic story, more French in character. Despite these jarring styles, the part of the work which forms Anelida's complaint is one of the most highly regarded uses of the "lover's-complaint" motif. Chaucer wrote several other short poems in the complaint genre such as *The Complaint unto Pity* and *The Complaint of Venus*, and this may have been an unsuccessful attempt on Chaucer's part to extend the form into a much longer poem.[2] ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Wimsatt, James I. (1970). [""Anelida and Arcite": A Narrative of Complaint and Comfort"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25093138). *The Chaucer Review*. **5** (1): 1–8. [JSTOR](/source/JSTOR_(identifier)) [25093138](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25093138). 1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Chaucer, Geoffrey (17 September 2018). [*Anelida and Arcite*](https://books.google.com/books?id=IIXTvAEACAAJ). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9781727434620](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781727434620). English [Wikisource](/source/Wikisource) has original text related to this article: **[Anelida and Arcite](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/en:Anelida_and_Arcite)** v t e Geoffrey Chaucer Works The Canterbury Tales General Prologue The Knight's Tale The Miller's Tale The Reeve's Tale The Cook's Tale The Man of Law's Tale The Wife of Bath's Tale The Friar's Tale The Summoner's Tale The Clerk's Tale The Merchant's Tale The Squire's Tale The Franklin's Tale The Physician's Tale The Pardoner's Tale The Shipman's Tale The Prioress's Tale Sir Thopas The Tale of Melibee The Monk's Tale The Nun's Priest's Tale The Second Nun's Tale The Canon's Yeoman's Tale The Manciple's Tale The Parson's Tale Chaucer's Retraction Other works The Romaunt of the Rose The Book of the Duchess The House of Fame Anelida and Arcite The Parliament of Fowls Boece Troilus and Criseyde The Legend of Good Women A Treatise on the Astrolabe The Complaint of Mars Spurious The Cuckoo and the Nightingale The Complaint of the Black Knight The equatorie of the planetis The Floure and the Leafe Pierce the Ploughman's Crede Jack Upland Tales The Tale of Gamelyn Prologue and Tale of Beryn The Plowman's Tale The Pilgrim's Tale Language Accentual-syllabic verse Rhyme royal Heroic couplet Manuscript tradition Order of The Canterbury Tales Hengwrt Chaucer Ellesmere Chaucer Harley MS. 7334 Adam Pinkhurst Scribe D John Shirley Geoffrey Spirleng Related Chaucer's influence on fifteenth-century Scottish literature Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer Philippa Roet (wife) Katherine Swynford (wife's sister) Thomas Chaucer (son) Alice de la Pole (granddaughter) Poets' Fountain (1875 sculpture) A Knight's Tale (2001 film) Authority control databases VIAF GND This article related to a poem is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. - [v](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Poem-stub) - [t](/source/Template_talk%3APoem-stub) - [e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Poem-stub) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Anelida and Arcite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anelida_and_Arcite) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anelida_and_Arcite?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.