00178--Matthew Arnold on the Early Poetry of France

Matthew Arnold is of the view that England is much obliged to France in the field of poetry.  The early poetry of England is ‘indissolubly connected’ to the early French poetry.  In his opinion the 12^th and the 13^th centuries were the seed-time of all modern language and literature.  At that time the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe.  The romance-poetry of Europe is French.  It is the pride of French literature.  The romance-poetry was at its height in the middle age.  In the fourteenth century there came an English man who nourished on this poetry.  He got his words, rhyme and metre from this poetry.  Matthew Arnold names this person as Chaucer.  In fact Chaucer received the elements of the romantic poetry immediately, from the Italians, especially from Dante.  But the Italians got this stuff from the French.