Chaucer's Native Heritage (American university studies)

Although much scholarly inquiry has been devoted to identifying foreign influences on Chaucer's poetry, perhaps its single most commonly acknowledged quality, and one for which it has been uni- versally praised, is its «Englishness.» Chaucer's Native Heritage is an attempt to isolate and define this English quality; to demonstrate that it has its roots in earlier English poetry, particularly in the early Middle English lyrics, and, consequently, that Chaucer's poetry does not so much represent the beginning of a new tradition in English literature as the culmination of a native poetic tradition to which he was heir.