Like most writers in an early literary period, Chaucer began with translations, which were extended into paraphrases or versions, and thus his "'prentice hand" gained the practice and skill with which to attempt original poems.
MINOR POEMS .-- His earliest attempt, doubtless, was the _Romaunt of the Rose_, an allegorical poem in French, by William de Lorris, continued, after his death in 1260, by Jean de Meun, who figured as a poet in the court of Charles le Bel, of France.

This poem, esteemed by the French as the finest of their old romances, was rendered by Chaucer, with considerable alterations and improvements, into octosyllabic verse.

The Romaunt portrays the trials which a lover meets and the obstacles he overcomes in pursuit of his mistress, under the allegory of a rose in an inaccessible garden.

It has been variously construed--by theologians as the yearning of man for the celestial city; by chemists as the search for the philosopher's stone; by jurists as that for equity, and by medical men as the attempt to produce a panacea for all human ailments.
Next in order was his _Troilus and Creseide_, a mediaeval tale, already attempted by Boccaccio in his Filostrate, but borrowed by Chaucer, according to his own account, from _Lollius_, a mysterious name without an owner.

The story is similar to that dramatized by Shakspeare in his tragedy of the same title.