are often unclear, but he seems to follow upon ten Brink and Furnivall.

Pollard, in his Chaucer-Primer, Lond. 1903, pp. 57-60 in especial, divides the Works into four periods: (1) to 1380, (2) the poems showing Italian influence, (3) the Canterbury Tales, (4) the few brief poems of Chaucer's "decline".

Skeat I :lxii-lxiii, prints a conjectural chronological list of Chaucer's works; ibid. p. xxx-xxxi he says: "It seems reasonable to date the poems which shew a strong Italian influence after Chaucer's visit to Italy in 1373."

Upon this long-accepted chronology two American scholars are now making modifications. See:

John L. Lowes' two papers on the Legend of Good Women, cited under that heading, Section IV here, especially the second; and see

J. S. P. Tatlock's Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works. Chaucer Society, 1907.

The work of Robert K. Root on the Poetry of Chaucer, Boston, 1906, is commended by the Nation 1906 II : 370-71 for its "conservatism in rejecting the ingenious speculations aimed at revolutionizing the generally accepted chronology of Chaucer's poems."

C. Sources of Chaucer's Works

Chaucer's "learning" was by his biographers of the sixteenth century treated as immense, see the lives by Leland and by Bale reprinted ante; and the notion of his great erudition persisted down to modern times. Not until the appearance of Professor Lounsbury's Studies, in 1892, was a full investigation of the question carried out; and this essay, in volume II of the work, remains the only good survey of the subject, though much has been added in recent years, e. g. the use by Chaucer of Froissart and Deschamps, as demonstrated by Kittredge and by Lowes, see under Legend of Good Women and House of Fame, below.

The student to-day sees in Chaucer an eager reader of books, a man who read and translated easily both French and Latin (though with occasional errors, see Lounsbury, Studies II: 205, Stewart's Boethius pp. 222 ff.), a man possessed also of what was very unusual in his time, a knowledge of Italian. Some books, as we can perceive, he had chewed and digested,-the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius, the Roman de la Rose, the Metamorphoses of Ovid, the Filostrato and Teseide of Boccaccio. But some of the authors whom he names he shows no clear sign of having read; and as Lounsbury has remarked, "Chaucer's quotations from writers exhibit a familiarity with prologues and first books and early chapters which contrasts ominously with the comparative infrequency with which he makes citations from the middle and latter parts of most of the works he mentions." (Studies II : 265.)

On this point I would add that in more than a few cases—Juvenal, Persius, etc.-the bits which Chaucer uses may have come to him through medieval Florilegia, or collections of Elegant Extracts, see below under C 4. Or mere school textbooks, the Ecloga of Theodulus or even the Priscian and Donat of Chaucer's boyhood, may have given him stray sentences cited by the grammars as illustrative quotation. This I might take yet further, and, in direct opposition to a theory like that of Rambeau regarding the House of Fame, I would question whether Chaucer's knowledge of Dante argues a reading of the whole Commedia.

The indebtedness of Chaucer to French poets was first fully discussed in:

Étude sur Chaucer considéré comme Imitateur des Trouvères.

E. C. Sandras. Paris, 1859.

Rev. by Ebert, Jahrbuch 4:85-106, and this review translated in Ch. Soc. Essays part I. Rev. by Macray, Gent. Mag. July 1865, pp. 24-30. Rev. by Hertzberg, Jahrbuch 8: 145-153. Rev. (severely) by Furnivall, Athen. 1872 II : 147, and see Trial Forew. pp. 43 ff.; see Lounsbury, Studies III: 407 ff.

Chaucer's knowledge of Italian writers was for a time denied. Thynne, in his Animadversions (1598) remarked that the Knight's

Tale was an adaptation of Boccaccio's Italian; and both Warton and Tyrwhitt added further facts as to Chaucer's use of Boccaccio. Cary, in his translation of the Commedia, 1805 ff., referred in his notes to Chaucer's use of many passages. But Sir Harris Nicolas, in his life of the poet, doubted Chaucer's knowledge of Italian, in which he was followed by Craik, in his history of English literature. Fiedler, reviewing Craik in Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, 1846, nos. 154-156, disproved this assertion, and remarked that Hippisley, in his Chapters on Early English Literature (Lond. 1837), had already noted Chaucer's debt to Italian writers; passages of Fiedler's review are cited Archiv 47: 320. Protests were also made by Pauli, Bilder aus Altengland, by Hertzberg, Jahrbuch 4:86 ff., and Lemcke, Jahrbuch 8: 100-105. The analyses of the Filostrato and the Teseide for the Chaucer Society by Rossetti and by Ward have amply proved Chaucer's use of Boccaccio; and Cary and ten Brink have pointed out passages taken by Chaucer from Dante. The only general study on Chaucer's indebtedness to Italy is: Chaucer in seinen Beziehungen zur italienischen Litteratur. Alfons Kissner. diss. Marburg, 1867, 81 pp.

Rev. by Hertzberg, Jahrbuch 8:153-64; by Lemcke ibid. pp. 102-105; praised by Eitner, Shakspere Jahrbuch 1868 p. 277. Of less value is:

Introduzione allo studio dei fonti italiani di G. Chaucer.

P. Bellezza. Milan, 1895, PP. 59.

Reviewed Engl. Stud. 22:288 (Koch); Anglia Beibl. 7:103; Archiv 97:230 (Fraenkel), very severe.

For other studies on the indebtedness of Chaucer to individual Italian writers see under Dante, Boccaccio, etc., below.

(1) Chaucer's Use of English Writers

This question has not received special treatment. Chaucer's use of Anglo-Latin authors is discussed below, but his reading in his own language, with the exception of Gower and of the romances, is as yet uninvestigated in detail.

Gower, John: Died 1408. Chaucer's contemporary, and for part of their lives at least, his personal friend. For account of the conjectured break in their relations see under Man of Law's Tale, Section III G below; and for the legend of Chaucer's pupilage or rivalry to Gower see the Latin biographies reprinted ante. Gower was author of the Vox Clamantis (Latin), the Speculum Amantis or Mirour de l'Homme (French), and the Confessio Amantis (English); also of minor French poems. His works are ed. by Macaulay, 4 vols., Oxford 1899 ff. Macaulay had previously discovered the supposedly lost French work, see Acad. 1895 I: 315.

The possible relation of Gower's Mirour de l'Homme and Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is discussed by Flügel, Anglia 24 : 437-508; and the date of the Mirour in Appendix A to Tatlock's Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works. See also Koeppel, Engl. Stud. 20: 154.

Between the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio there are four agreements in stories, viz., the story of Virginia, of Constance, of Phoebus and the Crow, and of Florent (cp. the Wife of Bath's Tale). The story of Ceix and Alcyone (see Book of the Duchesse) is also narrated by Gower, as is that of Jephthah's daughter, retold in the Doctor's Tale. Of these the treatment of the Constance story is by far the most striking, and when taken in conjunction with the censure in the Man of Law's headlink of two plots used by Gower, has furnished food for the theory of a quarrel between the poets.

Romances, Early English Metrical: Outside of the burlesque romance The Rime of Sir Thopas, Chaucer's allusions to romantic persons and subjects are as follows: Alexander is mentioned in general terms in the BoDuch lines 1059-60 and in the HoFame 1413, cp. MancTale line 122. The story of Alexander is briefly and generally told MoTale 641 ff., but in the HoFame 915 ff. there is a specific reference to a story concerning him recounted in the Wars of Alexander; see Skeat's note, III: 262 and his ed. for the EETS. Arthur is four times alluded to in the WBTale, the scene of which is supposedly laid at his court. Knights connected with the Arthurian cycle are Gawain (SqTale 95), Lancelot (SqTale 287, NPTale 392). Tristram is mentioned as a typical lover in PoF line 290 and

in To Rosemounde line 20. Charlemagne is alluded to in MoTale 397, and Octovian, in a sense more historical than literary, in BoDuch line 368 and in LGW (Cleopatra) line 45. Were it not for the full knowledge of the English metrical romances displayed in the Rime of Sir Thopas, we might have assumed that Chaucer had done no reading in that field, and had picked up the allusions to Gawain as courteous, Tristram and Lancelot as typical lovers, and Arthur's court as the centre of chivalry, from the literary commonplace of his time. See under Rime of Sir Thopas, Section III G here.

The Middle English metrical romances have been partly listed, with summaries of plot and brief bibliographical notes, in Guide to the Middle English Metrical Romances, by Anna H. Billings, N. Y. 1901 (Yale Studies). See the mass of information in Ward's Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols. Collections are: Halliwell. The Thornton Romances. Camden Soc. 1844. (Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour, Degrevant.)

Ritson. Ancient Eng. Metrical Romances, 3 vols. Lond. 1802, new ed. 1889-90.

Ellis. Specimens of Early Eng. Metr. Romances, ed. Halliwell, Lond. 1848.

Weber. Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Centuries, 3 vols., Edinb. 1810.

See also Percy Folio MS, ed. Hales and Furnivall, 186768. For eds. of the single English romances, see under Rime of Sir Thopas, Section III G here.

"Romantic stories" among the CT are the MLTale, the CLTale, the WBTale, the FrankTale, the unfinished SqTale, and the burlesque Sir Thopas.

(2) Chaucer's Use of French Writers

Adenès le Roi: author of the Cléomades, a romance of the 14th century; for the connection of this with the Squire's Tale see Jones in Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass'n. 20 : 346.

De Guileville, Guillaume: Flourished 1330-60. Author of an elaborate tripartite Pilgrimage; part I, Pélèrinage de la Vie Humaine or de l'Homme; part II, Pélèrinage de l'Ame; III, Pélèrinage de Jésu Christ: all edited for the Roxburghe Club by J. J. Sturzinger, London 1893, 1895, 1897, with reproduction of illuminations, etc., from various MSS. Part I was twice written by De Guileville, first in 1330, revised in 1335-6; the former was Englished in prose about 1430, ed. for the Roxburghe Club in 1869 by W. A. Wright; this is the poem which may have been known to Bunyan. The revision of 1335-6 was