Gorges re-appears in Alcyon in "Colin Clout's come home again."); but it
is the first passage in Chaucer's writings revealing, one would have
thought unmistakeably, the dramatic power which was among his most
characteristic gifts. The charm of this poem, notwithstanding all the
artificialities with which it is overlaid, lies in its simplicity and
truth to nature. A real human being is here brought before us instead of
a vague abstraction; and the glow of life is on the page, though it has to
tell of death and mourning. Chaucer is finding his strength by dipping
into the true spring of poetic inspiration; and in his dreams he is
awaking to the real capabilities of his genius. Though he is still
uncertain of himself and dependent on others, it seems not too much to say
that already in this "Book of the Duchess" he is in some measure an
original poet.

How unconscious, at the same time, this waking must have been is manifest
from what little is known concerning the course of both his personal and
his literary life during the next few years. But there is a tide in the
lives of poets, as in those of other men, on the use or neglect of which
their future seems largely to depend. For more reasons than one Chaucer
may have been rejoiced to be employed on the two missions abroad, which
apparently formed his chief occupation during the years 1370-1373. In the
first place, the love of books, which he so frequently confesses, must in
him have been united to a love of seeing men and cities; few are observers
of character without taking pleasure in observing it. Of his literary
labours he probably took little thought during these years; although the
visit which in the course of them he paid to Italy may be truly said to
have constituted the turning-point in his literary life. No work of his
can be ascribed to this period with certainty; none of importance has ever
been ascribed to it.