Geoffrey Chaucer’s

is a unique example of late medieval scientific prose writing. It is also the Chaucerian text that most explicitly expresses the English poet’s ideas about language, translation, and the power of literature to shape the human understanding of the universe. The

is a late-career text, written between 1391 and 1392, roughly the same period during which Chaucer also wrote much of

. Thirty-two medieval manuscripts survive today, suggesting that the

was the poet’s second most widely copied and circulated text behind the

.

Deriving its name from the Greek term for “star-catching” or “star-tak­ing”, the astrolabe is a small, circular brass instrument etched with a miniature representation of

2510 words

Citation: Brooks, Michelle. "A Treatise on the Astrolabe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 October 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6921, accessed 22 November 2024.]

• View recommended reading for this article