Without _Troilus and Criseyde_ the works of Chaucer would be an immense variety—romance and sentiment, humour and observation, expressed in poetical language that has never been equalled for truth and liveliness. But it is only in _Troilus_ that Chaucer uses his full powers together in harmony. All the world, it might be said, is reflected in the various poems of Chaucer; _Troilus_ is the one poem which brings it all into a single picture. In the history of English poetry it is the close of the Middle Ages.
For the language: Anglo-Saxon can be learned in Sweet’s _Primer_ and _Reader_ (Clarendon Press). Sweet’s _First Middle English Primer_ gives extracts from the _Ancren Riwle_ and the _Ormulum_, with separate grammars for the two dialects. But it is generally most convenient to learn the language of Chaucer before attempting the earlier books. Morris and Skeat’s _Specimens of Early English_ (two volumes, Clarendon Press) range from the end of the English Chronicle (1153) to Chaucer; valuable for literary history as well as philology. The nature of the language is explained in Henry Bradley’s _Making of English_ (Clarendon Press), and in Wyld’s _Study of the Mother Tongue_ (Murray).
The following books should be noted: Stopford Brooke, _Early English Literature_ (Macmillan); Schofield, _English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer_ (Macmillan); Jusserand, _Literary History of the English People_ (Fisher Unwin); Chambers’ _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, I; Ten Brink, _Early English Literature_ (Bell); Saintsbury, _History of English Prosody_, I (Macmillan); Courthope, _History of English Poetry_, I and II (Macmillan).
Full bibliographies are provided in the _Cambridge History of English Literature_.
The bearings of early French upon English poetry are illustrated in Saintsbury’s _Flourishing of Romance and Rise of Allegory_ (Blackwood). Much of the common medieval tendencies may be learned from the earlier part of Robertson’s _German Literature_ (Blackwood), and Gaspary’s _Italian Literature_, translated by Oelsner (Bell). Some topics have been already discussed by the present author in other works: _Epic and Romance_ (Macmillan); _The Dark Ages_ (Blackwood); _Essays on Medieval Literature_ (Macmillan).