Chaucer Quotations

No poem, not even Shakespeare or Milton or Chaucer, is ever strong enough to totally exclude every crucial precursor text or poem.

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,On Fames eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.

You know what my favourite quotation is?...It's from Chaucer... Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese.

Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.

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

On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and Shakespeare, for he would haveheld up his head in their company.

Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.