Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor PoemsChaucer, Geoffrey
General
Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems
Chaucer, Geoffrey
English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500
Of the 41 pieces in Part I. of the above, we must of course accept as
Chaucer's the four poems entitled Canterbury Tales, Troilus, Legend of Good
Women, and House of Fame; also the prose translation of Boethius, and the
prose treatise on the Astrolabie. The remaining number of Minor Poems
(excluding the Romaunt of the Rose) is 34; out of which number I accept the
13 numbered above with the numbers 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 23, 24, 33 (so far as
it quotes Chaucer), 34, 35, 36, 37, and 39. Every one of these has already
been shewn to be genuine on sufficient external evidence, and it is not
likely that their genuineness will be doubted. In the present volume they
appear, respectively, as nos. III, XVII, V, II, VII, IV, XVIII, XIV, XV,
XIII, X, XVI, XIX. Of the remaining 21, several may be dismissed in a few
words. No. 4 is well known to have been written by Robert Henryson. Nos.
11, 28, 29, and 40 are distinctly claimed for Lydgate in all the editions;
and no. 27 is similarly claimed for Gower. No. 25 was written by
Hoccleve[220]; and the last line gives the date--'A thousande, foure
hundred and seconde,' i. e. 1402, or two years after Chaucer's death. No.
13 is translated from Alain Chartier, who was only four years old when
Chaucer died; see p. 28, note 2. Tyrwhitt remarks that, in MS. Harl. 372,
this poem is expressly attributed to a Sir Richard Ros[221]. No one can
suppose that no. 41 is by Chaucer, seeing that the first line is--'Maister
Geffray Chauser, that now lithe in graue.' Mr. Bradshaw once assured me
that no. 17 is ascribed, on MS. authority, to Lydgate; and no one who reads
it with care can doubt that this is correct[222]. It is, in a measure, an
imitation of the Book of the Duchesse; and it contains some interesting
references to Chaucer, as in the lines--'Of Arcite, or of him Palemoun,'
and 'Of Thebes eke the false Arcite.' No. 20, i. e. the Testament of Love,
is _in prose_, and does not here concern us; still it is worth pointing out
that it contains a passage (near the end) such as we cannot suppose that
Chaucer would have written concerning himself[223].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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