Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Our Supreme Poet of Happiness
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Allegory of Love (1936; rpt. Oxford University Press, 1951), p. 197 (discussing Troilus and Cryseide):
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Here also, despite the tragic and comic elements, Chaucer shows himself, as in the Book of the Duchesse, the Parlement, and the Canterbury Tales, our supreme poet of happiness. The poetry which represents peace and joy, desires fulfilled and winter overgone, the poetry born under festal Jove, is of a high and difficult order: if rarity be the test of difficulty, it is the most difficult of all. In it Chaucer has few rivals, and no masters.Related post: A Happy Spectator.
