For nearly 300 years after Speght's edition it was almost universally accepted that "The Floure and the Leafe" was the work of
Geoffrey Chaucer.
John Dryden was the first major writer to pick out "The Floure and the Leafe" for special attention, writing a modernized version of it for inclusion in his
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), and writing that There is another [tale] of
his own Invention, after the manner of the
Provencalls, call'd "The Flower and the Leaf", with which I was so particularly pleas'd, both for the Invention and the Moral, that I cannot hinder my self from recommending it to the Reader. Dryden's advocacy was the making of the poem's reputation, and for nearly two centuries praise came unstintingly.
Alexander Pope reported that "every body has been delighted" with it, and on his own account called it a masterpiece.
William Hazlitt thought the opening section "one of the finest parts of Chaucer" and spoke of the poem's "enchanting simplicity and concentrated feeling", while
Thomas Campbell judged that "No one who remembers his productions of the
House of Fame and the "Flower and the Leaf", will regret that he sported for a season in the field of allegory."
Keats read the poem and wrote an admiring sonnet about it, "This pleasant tale is like a little copse", which included the line "What mighty power has this gentle story". It has been suggested that his "Ode to a Nightingale" was in part inspired by the
Middle English poem, or by Dryden's modernization of it. The musician and poet
Sidney Lanier outdid them all when he declared "The Floure and the Leafe" was worth all the
Canterbury Tales put together. In 1868 scenes from the poem were represented in the memorial window (destroyed in
World War II) placed above Chaucer's tomb in
Westminster Abbey. The same year, the scholar
Henry Bradshaw gave reasons for thinking the poem to have been written too late to be Chaucer's work. The pioneering Middle English scholar
Thomas Tyrwhitt had published his own doubts as early as 1778, and been universally derided for this heresy. Now, however, Bradshaw's judgement was seconded by
ten Brink, who produced many arguments for rejecting it from the canon of Chaucer's works. Attempts to counter these arguments were unavailing, and thereafter the poem had to make its own way in the world, without the protection of Chaucer's name. The great philologist
Walter Skeat accepted Bradshaw's judgement, and spoke of the poem's "tinsel-like glitter…which gives it a flashy attractiveness, in striking contrast to the easy grace of Chaucer's workmanship". On the other hand,
The Cambridge History of English Literature in 1908 found its charm undiminished: There is a singular brightness and freshness over it all, together with a power of
pre-Raphaelite decoration and of vivid portraiture—even of such action as there is—which is very rare. Indeed, out of Chaucer himself and the original beginning of
Guillaume de Lorris in the
Roman de la Rose, it would be difficult to find anything of the kind better done. As late as 1936 the poem was so well known that
C. S. Lewis, in
The Allegory of Love, could claim that "The story is probably familiar to every reader." He saw the poem as "a hybrid – a moral allegory wearing the dress of the Rose tradition", and praised the author, though in rather condescending terms: If she cannot claim wisdom, she has a great deal of good sense and good humour, and is guided by them to write a poem more original than she herself, perhaps, suspected. A similar merit, and a similar limitation, appear in her execution. She describes what interests her, selecting rather by temperament than by art; and she finds considerable difficulty in getting the right number of syllables into each line. In recent years
Derek Pearsall has produced two editions of "The Floure and the Leafe", and re-examined the poem's historical context but relatively few critics have published studies of it. Some of that is changing, however, as interest in gender has gained traction. For example, Michelle M. Sauer has suggested the poem exhibits traces of lesbian desire and a female desiring gaze. However, work remains to be done, particularly since, as Kathleen Formi has noted, "To my knowledge, the poem has not been anthologized." == Modern editions ==