"Chaucer" 1932 Chesterton, g.k.

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CHESTERTON, G.K.

[310] pp.

Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.

1932

8 3/4" x 6 1/8"

Jacket design by Rex Whistler

"As … Read more CHESTERTON, G.K.

[310] pp.

Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.

1932

8 3/4" x 6 1/8"

Jacket design by Rex Whistler

"As you might expect, Chesterton uses Chaucer as an excuse for talking about practically everything else, and a supremely fortunate excuse Chaucer provides. For Chaucer, above all men, deserves the vague and promiscuosly granted title 'first of the moderns.' The 'Canterbury Tales' is virtually the first novel of character, and Chaucer wrote it, fittingly enough, in a little thind he'd tossed off himself, namely the English language. But he was also the last of the medievals, with a casual but sure grasp of the faith, an easy internationalism, and a serence sense of order and, consequently, of humor. Chesterton uses Chaucer as a sort of giant specimen in a wide historical study. He notes a natural democracy among Chaucer's pilgrims, a chivalry, and a lightness of heart, which he considers the very essence of the medieval ideal but for various reasons, his pilgrims are not strangers to us, all the same. And along with the sensitive historical comparison, there are the magnificent chestertonian swipes at the evils of our times. As for the poetry, the author treats it 'as literature, not a linguistic study for the learned' -- in other words, as an excuse to talk about literature and everything else" See less