Chaucer or Shakespeare: Who was more important in the development of English literature?
Although Shakespeare was unquestionably the greater writer, Chaucer may have been more important to the development of English literature. Chaucer did more to shape literature in the sense of introducing French and Italian verse forms into English. Had he not lived, the alliterative style of Old English, which was being revived in Chaucer’s day (there’s even an allusion to it in the Canterbury Tales) might have continued for several centuries–certainly not a bad thing in itself, but a very different direction for the language to have taken. Although (as far as is known) Chaucer never wrote a sonnet, if he hadn’t introduced other Italian patterns into English, Wyatt, Surrey, Shakespeare, and other poets might not have written sonnets. In addition, there’s the fact that in Chaucer’s time there were several distinct dialects of Middle English and that the one in which he wrote became the ancestor of standard Modern English. Since it was also the dialect spoken and written in London, it m
