The Chaucer Epoch

From the INTRODUCTION. History may be called the record of the abnormal; it is from literature that we get to know the heart of a people. This may seem a strange claim when we consider that the historian is searching for truth among hard facts and figures, and the poet is building castles of the imagination. Yet it will be found that, while the poet is unconsciously giving us the true picture of himself and his times, the historian is no less unconsciously distorting the truth. Life is not,...