eBooks Base 2000

]
Even here, however, one can trace the modern aesthetic aversion to fat.
Chaucer undoubtedly took sly pleasure in stressing his difference from
the current conception of the poet, which was typified so well by the
handsome young squire, who
Coude songes make, and wel endyte.
[Footnote: _Prologue_.]
Such, at least, is the interpretation of Percy Mackaye, who in his play,
_The Canterbury Pilgrims_, derives the heartiest enjoyment from
Chaucer's woe lest his avoirdupois may affect Madame Eglantine
unfavorably. The modern English poet who is oppressed by too, too solid
flesh is inclined to follow Chaucer's precedent and take it
philosophically. James Thomson allowed the stanza about himself,
interpolated by his friends into the _Castle of Indolence_, to
remain, though it begins with the line,
A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems.
And in these days, the sentimental reader is shocked by Joyce Kilmer's
callous assertion, "I am fat and gross.... In my youth I was slightly
decorative. But now I drink beer instead of writing about absinthe.


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