SOURCE: De Vere, Aubrey. Review of The Angel in the House, by Coventry Patmore. The Edinburgh Review 107, no. 217 (January 1858): 121-33.

In the following essay, De Vere provides a stylistic and thematic overview of the first two volumes of The Angel in the House.

During the first quarter of the present century the most popular of our poets sought their themes in distant regions and at remote periods. In this pursuit of novelty they broke through some of the earliest and most pleasing characteristics of English poetry. Chaucer, though in his youthful works he had affected classical and mythological subjects, in his last and greatest, the Canterbury Tales, was for nothing more remarkable than for the homely vigour with which he treated English character and manners. In this respect he was the precursor of Shakspeare; and in many of his stories we find an anticipation of that genial humour...