How does Geoffrey Chaucer explore love in Parlement of Foules?

In The Parlement of Foules, Geoffrey Chaucer explores the nature of love by employing a dream-vision framework that allows him to gently satirize the conventions of courtly love.1

The poem depicts a gathering of birds on St. Valentine’s Day where three high-ranking eagles compete for the attention of a female bird. By giving the other birds—which represent various segments of English society—a voice in the debate, Chaucer examines the value of different types of love within the context of "common profit," a concept derived from Cicero’s The Dream of Scipio.12

While the poem is written in the tradition of French romances, Chaucer simultaneously questions the merits of that tradition through humor and irony. Ultimately, the debate regarding love and marriage remains unresolved, and the narrator concludes that he must continue his search for answers in other books.12