పుట:2015.396258.Vyasavali.pdf/161

వికీసోర్స్ నుండి
ఈ పుటను అచ్చుదిద్దలేదు

149

POPULAR LITERATURE (i)

would have died out. His influence, however is not different in kind from that exercised by every author of commanding genius. It is only because he was prior in time that it was greater in degree." (Vol.II).

    When Caxton introduced the art of printing into England, he deliberately followed the diction and style of Chaucer, then a fashion among literary men. The idiom was perfectly English though the style was French. The old English terms which some of the friends urged him to use were "so rude and broad that he could not himself understand them."
   In less than two hundred years, however, Chaucer's English became obsolete and was unintelligible even to scholars.
     Milton's friend Waller says in a spirit of resignation:--

    "Chaucer his sense can only boast,
     The glory of his members lost;
     Years have defaced his matchless strain,
     And yet he did not live in vain."

   While Sir Aston Cookayne, like leaders of Telugu Academy, denounces those who call the old language obsolete and unintelligible and rates