25 APRIL 1914, Page 41

Chaucer and the Roman de la Bose. By Dean Spruill

Fenster. (Humphrey Milford. 6s. 6d. net.)—This con- scientious monograph originated as a thesis in Columbia University. It discusses at length Chaucer's relative debt to Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meting—s subject on which there has been great diversity of opinion among the critics. Mr. Fenster concludes that there was an "undeni- able sympathetic relationship" between Chaucer and Jean de Meung, to whom the English poet went for "all kinds of allusions and information": but that no evidence of such borrowing can affect our estimate of Chaucer's fundamental and essential originality.