Chaucerian Echoes in the Debate betweene Pride and Lowlines

Brief remarks by Frederick Furnivall (1868), Eleanor Hammond (1908), Caroline Spurgeon (1925), and Jackson Campbell Boswell and Sylvia Wallace Holton (2004), indicate that the sixteenth-century poem entitled the Debate betweene Pride and Lowlines shows in its character descriptions the influence of Chaucer. But, apart from one particular case, no details of the matter have been brought to light. Examination of the poem reveals that such influence is definite, though not pervasive, and that Chaucer’s effect on the Debate is rather more various than previous comments suggest. Beyond reminiscences of the General Prologue, one finds several echoes of language and motifs drawn from other parts of the Canterbury Tales, from Troilus and Criseyde, and from the dream visions.