"_In the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on this [the romance] poetry, taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, metre from this poetry; for even of that stanza which the Italians used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis and suggestion was probably given in France. . . . If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of Chaucer's poetry over the [earlier] romance-poetry, why it is that in passing from this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life. . . . We have only to call to mind the Prologue to 'The Canterbury Tales.' The right comment upon it is Dryden's: 'It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that _here is God's plenty_.' And again: 'He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.' It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer's poetry has truth of substance. If we think of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his gold 'dew-drops of speech.' . . . Chaucer is the father of our splendid English poetry, he is our 'well of English undefiled,' because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is his liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at another it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible._"--MATTHEW ARNOLD. Poets of the Fourteenth Century. =Geoffrey Chaucer= (1328-1400). See biographical note, page 301. =William Langland= (1332- ). "The Vision of William concerning Piers the Ploughman." =John Gower= (1330-1408). "Confessio Amantis." Geoffrey Chaucer. FROM THE "PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES."