Quotes About Chaucer

In another life I would be a medievalist. I loved Chaucer, far more than Shakespeare.

They discussed the war, the Occupation, and the future of an economically-shattered Japan ruled by an emperor who had announced that he was not, after all, a god. In the course of the conversation Kyosuke effortlessly quoted Chekhov, Chaucer, and Heine, though not in a pretentious way, and always with perfect relevance.

As a text, the Quran is more than the foundation of the Islamic religion; it is the source of Arabic grammar. It is to Arabic what Homer is to Greek, what Chaucer is to English: a snapshot of an evolving language, frozen forever in time

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nighTo learned Chaucer; and rare Beaumont, lieA little nearer Spenser; to make roomFor Shakespeare in your threefold fourfold tomb.

O reverend Chaucere, rose of rethoris all,As in oure tong ane flour imperiall, That raise in Britane evir, quho redis rycht,Thou beris of makaris the triumph riall.

Love will not be constrain'd by mastery. When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone. Love is a thing as any spirit free.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend; His praise is lost, who stays till all commend. Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes, And 'tis but just to let 'em live betimes. No longer now that golden age appears, When patriarch wits surviv'd a thousand years: Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost, And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast; Our sons their fathers' failing language see, And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.

this development produced what is called Middle English, known especially from Chaucer

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breathPreluded those melodious bursts that fillThe spacious times of great ElizabethWith sounds that echo still.

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled,On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed.

Conference of the Birds inspired some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and gave the Swiss the legend of William Tell. Chaucer had been dead for almost a hundred years when the Spanish reconquest of Granada in 1492

I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.

And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine.

Then the Miller fell off his horse.

the harm that's in the world now as often comes through folly as through malice.

Well did he know the taverns in every town, and every hosteller and bar-maid, far better than he knew any leper or beggar.

Here is ended the Prioress's Tale.

Lo, what a powerful thing is emotion! Men may die of imagination, so profoundly can a notion afflict the mind.

and, 'he who despises all, displeases all,' as the Book says.

And Seneca says, 'Whosoever would have wisdom shall disdain no man, but he shall gladly teach what he knows, without presumption or pride, and of such things as he does not know, he shall not be ashamed to learn them, and shall inquire of lesser folk than himself.

A priest should take to heart the shameful scene of shepards filthy while the sheep are clean.

And what a shame it is, if a Priest took not prudent care, to witness a shitty shepherd shepherding unsullied sheep.

He had more tow on his distaff Than Gerveis knew.

Oon of us two moste bowen, doutelees; And sith a man is moore resonable Than womman is, ye moste been suffrable.