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The genius of Chaucer however was neither French nor Italian, whatever element it might borrow from either literature, but English to the core; and from the year 1384 all trace of foreign influence dies away. Chaucer had now reached the climax of his poetic power.
It is not necessary for me in this presence to dwell upon the value of culture. I wish rather to have you notice the gulf that exists between what the majority want to know and that fine fruit of knowledge concerning which there is so widespread an infidelity. Will culture aid a minister in a "protracted meeting"? Will the ability to read Chaucer assist a shop-keeper?
The tone of intellectual contempt which begins with Walter de Map goes deepening on till it culminates in Chaucer and passes into the open revolt of the Lollard. But even in these early days we can hardly doubt that it gave Henry strength in his contest with the Church.
Of the great writers, Professor Craik devotes but little space to Shakspeare and Milton, because their works are in everybody's hands; while from Chaucer and Spenser, Swift and Burke, ample specimens are given, the author assuming that their writings are but little read.
In the "Canterbury Tales," above all, his attacks upon the Friars run nearly the whole gamut of satire, stopping short perhaps before the note of high moral indignation. Moreover, as has been seen, his long connexion with John of Gaunt is a well-established fact; and it has thence been concluded that Chaucer fully shared the opinions and tendencies represented by his patron.
He occasionally shows the influence of Chaucer, and is said to have known Latin and French. Poetess, b. at Mannheim, but settled in London about 1849, and pub. several books of poetry, The Prophecy of St. Oran , The Heather on Fire , Songs and Sonnets , Birds of Passage , etc. She also translated Strauss's Old Faith and New, and other works, and wrote Lives of George Eliot and Madame Roland.
Under Charles I "Troilus and Cressid" found a translator in Sir Francis Kynaston, whom Cartwright congratulated on having made it possible "that we read Chaucer now without a dictionary." A personage however, in Cartwright's best known play, the Antiquary Moth, prefers to talk on his own account "genuine" Chaucerian English.
It seemed as if the prolific and rich invention of old Chaucer had animated the Flemish artist with its profusion, and Oldbuck had accordingly caused the following verses, from that ancient and excellent poet, to be embroidered in Gothic letters, on a sort of border which he had added to the tapestry:
It seems scarcely justifiable to assign to any particular point of time the "Ballade sent to King Richard" by Chaucer; but its manifest intention was to apprise the king of the poet's sympathy with his struggle against the opponents of the royal policy, which was a thoroughly autocratical one.
The story breaks off with the dramatic abruptness in which Chaucer is a master, and which so often distinguishes his versions from their originals at the death of Alcyone, caused by her grief at the tidings brought by Morpheus of her husband's death.
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