“Geoffrey Chaucer,” says Professor Kittredge, “is nearer to us than Alexander Pope.” This is true, not only of the spirit of his times, but also of the man. Chaucer is more like us than Pope is: we feel more mental, moral, and spiritual kinship with the writer of the Nun's Priest's Tale than with the author of the Essay on Man. But, though this is true, we are not to think that therefore we understand him more thoroughly. In reality, we comprehend nearly all of Pope, and some of him we don't like; per contra, we like all of Chaucer that we comprehend: yet there are moods and meanings in him hard to fathom.