A poem or poetic passage in which the poet renounces or retracts
an earlier poem or type of subject matter.
An elaborate and charming example
is the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women in which Geoffrey Chaucer, con-
trite after being charged by the God of Love with having slandered women
lovers in Troilus and Criseyde and his translation of the Romance of the Rose, does penance by writing this poem on women who were saints in their fidelity to the creed of love.
Palinodes are especially common in love poetry. The Elizabethan sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney,
"Leave me,
O love which reachest but to dust,"
It is a palinode renouncing the poetry of
sexual love for that of heavenly love.
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