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Poet-lore

Vol. IV.

No.11.

——wilt thou not haply ſaie
Truth needs no collour with his collour fixt,
Beautie no penſell, beauties truth to lay:
But beſt is beſt, if neuer intermixt
Becauſe he needs no praiſe, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuſe not ſilence ſo, for’t lies in thee,
To make him much out-liue a gilded tombe:
And to be praiſed of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office ——

IS CHAUCER IRRELIGIOUS?


THE thought of Chaucer as religious, in the accepted sense of the term, is a pleasing absurdity. Mr. Lounsbury’s recent monograph, however, has raised a query about the relation of Chaucer to the religion of his time. It is the work of a profound student. No stone has been left unturned to prove Chaucer irreligious. For my own part, although I agree with Mr. Lounsbury in most particulars, I should like to lay the stress a little differently. I shall try to restate the whole question more briefly, from a less scholarly standpoint, to prove Chaucer, in a special sense, religious. This is begging the question. Mr. Lounsbury has declared Chaucer pre-eminently a man of letters and an artist in his profession, and he has explained the poet’s philosophy; but in support of Chaucer’s twofold ability as critic and as artist, I would dwell even more forcibly, if possible, upon a twofold influence of historic significance; namely, contemporary art in Italy, and the development of rationalism in religion.

Readers of Chaucer are familiar with the religious figures of Monk, Friar, Pardoner, and Summoner of the ‘Canterbury Tales,’

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