The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things
and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness,
benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of
life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly
which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the
increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving
us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. A voice
from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voice
of poor Villon[96] out of his life of riot and crime, has at its happy
moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of _La Belle Heaulmiere_
[97]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness than all the
productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and in men like
Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the power of their
criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained.
To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this
limitation: he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and
therewith an important part of their virtue.
Pages:
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158