war of Troy."]
[Footnote 560: Dares Phrygius. A Latin account of the fall of Troy,
written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of
a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in
Homer's _Iliad_.]
[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ,
whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical
legends.]
[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after
Christ.]
[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.]
[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the
fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed
that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far
superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.]
[Footnote 565: Provencal poets. The poets of Provence, a province of
the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated
for its lyric poets, called troubadours.]
[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the
Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete
and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth
century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by
William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.]
[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian
poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown
"Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is _Il
Filostrato_, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned.
Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is
entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound
knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded
the French poets.]
[Footnote 568: The Cock and the Fox. _The Nun's Priest's Tale_ in the
_Canterbury Tales_ was an original treatment of the _Roman de Renart_,
of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 569: House of Fame, etc. The plan of the _House of Fame_,
written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows the
influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the
Roman poet.]
[Footnote 570: Gower. John Gower was an English poet, Chaucer's
contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same sources for
poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's works as we
would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on
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