Excerpt from Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower This work is a revision of a study originally made by the writer while a student in the Graduate School of Harvard Uni versity. The limitation of the consideration to the so-called love paramours made necessary the omission of much of Chaucer's best and most interesting work. But even so, in what is left, there is abundant opportunity for observing the poet's genius. The romantic love in Chaucer, although it differs in no essential j respect from that treated by his predecessors and contemporaries in France, becomes in his hands the material for an artistic product of an entirely new sort. The very artistic excellence of the work has sometimes led critics, the writer believes, to wrong impressions of the love itself, and hence to wrong assumptions not only as to the poet's purpose but also as to his achievement. This fact may perhaps be considered sufficient reason for the present study. Readers nowadays, as a matter of course and, it would seem, often conventionally, complain of the dullness of Gower. His treatment of love does not make it possible for us to deny the justice of such a complaint. At any rate, to the reader of early erotic literature, he serves the useful purpose of showing by contrast how brilliant may be a real poet's treatment of romantic love. Some such purpose, it is hoped, the chapter on Gower will serve in this study. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.