The Father of Poetry and the Father of Criticism

This chapter examines the criticism of Chaucer by John Dryden, famously described by Samuel Johnson as ‘the father of English criticism’. Dryden’s remarks on Chaucer in the Preface to his Fables Ancient and Modern are discussed in detail, with particular attention being paid to the paradoxical and apparently contradictory suggestions that they contain, and to the seemingly rambling and unmethodical style of Dryden’s exposition. Dryden’s understanding of Chaucer’s metre and versification are examined and compared with those of Chaucer’s editors, Urry and Thomas Morell. It is argued that contrary to the suggestions of some later commentators, Dryden’s remarks about the imperfections of Chaucer’s metrics are perfectly understandable in the light of the texts of Chaucer that were available to him, since no form of pronunciation could have made those texts scan consistently as iambic pentameter. Dryden’s larger suggestion that Chaucer is both antiquated and comparable to Virgil is explored. Dryden’s admiration for Chaucer’s good sense, comprehensive soul, descriptions of human nature, and perpetual paternal place in the course of English poetry is described in relation to Dryden’s master paradox: that the laws governing human nature are inescapably permanent, while every single aspect of their manifestations changes continually and inexorably.