Playful Poems

This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.
Companion Poets
EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION
HENRY MORLEY. EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Limited Broadway, Ludgate Hill GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK 1891
The last volume of these “Companion Poets” contained some of Chaucer’s Tales as they were modernised by Dryden. This volume contains more of his Tales as they were modernised by later poets. In 1841 there was a volume published entitled, “The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernized.” Of this volume, when it was first projected, Wordsworth wrote to Moxon, his publisher, on the 24th of February 1840: “Mr. Powell, my friend, has some thought of preparing for publication some portion of Chaucer modernised, as far and no farther than is done in my treatment of ‘The Prioress’ Tale.’ That would, in fact, be his model. He will have coadjutors, among whom, I believe, will be Mr. Leigh Hunt, a man as capable of doing the work well as any living writer. I have placed at my friend Mr. Powell’s disposal three other pieces which I did long ago, but revised the other day. They are ‘The Manciple’s Tale,’ ‘The Cuckoo and the Nightingale,’ and twenty-four stanzas of ‘Troilus and Cressida.’ This I have done mainly out of my love and reverence for Chaucer, in hopes that, whatever may be the merits of Mr. Powell’s attempt, the attention of other writers may be drawn to the subject; and a work hereafter produced, by different persons, which will place the treasures of one of the greatest of poets within the reach of the multitude, which now they are not. I mention all this to you because, though I have not given Mr. Powell the least encouragement to do so, he may sound you as to your disposition to undertake the publication. I have myself nothing further to do with it than I have stated. Had the thing been suggested to me by any number of competent persons twenty years ago, I would have undertaken the editorship and done much more myself, and endeavoured to improve the several contributions where they seemed to require it. But that is now out of the question.”