5. The following quotations on Chaucer can each be taken as the theme of a short discussion, and all of them can be used as the foundation of a longer paper.
(1) Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled,
On Fame’s eternall beadroll worthy to be filed.
Spenser
(2) He is the father of English poetry.... He followed nature everywhere.... The verse of Chaucer is not harmonious to us.... There is the rudeness of a Scotch tune in it.[44]
Dryden
(3) He was a healthy and hearty man, so humane that he loved even the foibles of his kind.... He was a truly epic poet, without knowing it.... He has left us such a picture of contemporary life as no man ever painted.
Lowell
(4) Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill