Page 198, note 1. Taine, in his History of English Literature, thus justifies Chaucer's borrowing or rendering:—
"Chaucer was capable of seeking out, in the old common
The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men [Vol. 4]
About this Item
- Title
- The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men [Vol. 4]
- Author
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882.
- Publication
- Boston ; New York :: Houghton, Mifflin,
- [1903-1904].
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- Cite this Item
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"The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men [Vol. 4]." In the digital collection The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/4957107.0004.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 13, 2024.
Pages
Page 350
forest of the middle ages, stories and legends, to replant them in his own soil and make them send out new shoots. … He has the right and power of copying and translating because by dint of retouching he impresses … his original mark. He re-creates what he imitates. … At the distance of a century and a half he has affinity with the poets of Elizabeth by his gallery of pictures."
The dates of Lydgate and Caxton show a mistake as to his use of them. Caxton, following Chaucer, when he introduced the printing-press to England, printed his poems and those of Lydgate, who was younger than Chaucer. In his House of Fame, Chaucer places, in his vision, "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth and the other historians of the war of Troy,"1 a due recognition of his debt for Troylus and Cryseyde. As for Gower, he was Chaucer's exact contemporary and friend, and Chaucer dedicated this poem to him.
Notes
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1
Taine's History of English Literature.