Chaucer must be read with an eye to the Norman-French Trouveres, of whom
he is the best representative in English. He had great powers of
invention. As in Shakspeare, his characters represent classes, but in a
different manner; Shakspeare's characters are the representatives of the
interior nature of humanity, in which some element has become so
predominant as to destroy the health of the mind; whereas Chaucer's are
rather representatives of classes of manners. He is therefore more led
to individualize in a mere personal sense. Observe Chaucer's love of
nature; and how happily the subject of his main work is chosen. When you
reflect that the company in the Decameron have retired to a place of
safety from the raging of a pestilence, their mirth provokes a sense of
their unfeelingness; whereas in Chaucer nothing of this sort occurs, and
the scheme of a party on a pilgrimage, with different ends and
occupations, aptly allows of the greatest variety of expression in the
tales.

...

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]





SPENSER.

Born in London, 1553.--Died 1599.

There is this difference, among many others, between Shakspeare and