Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1996

Thesis Director

Timothy A. Shonk

Abstract

Geoffrey Chaucer's House of Fame is one of the most provocative dream-vision poems written in the fourteenth century. In many ways, it continues to present a serious problem of interpretation to students of medieval poetry. Many critics have tried to arrive at a singular cohesive theory explaining meaning and defining the genre of the House of Fame. However, these attempts have failed and the poem's enigma endures, probably for all time.

The House of Fame seems to elicit many different responses from its readers. While opinions of the poem may vary, the points of argument generally concern the following areas: the poem's genre and Chaucer's literary devotion to the old traditions of French and Italian poets; the House of Fame's thematic unity (or lack thereof); the presence or absence of a central theme(s).

Although this study of the House of Fame claims no final solution to the problems raised by the poem, it does attempt to present an interpretation of the poem which will demonstrate artistic cohesiveness and argue the presence of one central theme. It argues that the House of Fame is a journey into the depths of the human mind, thought, and poetry, and an odyssey into experience. It demonstrates Geffrey's questioning the importance of tradition and literary authority in Book I. In Books II and III, it depicts the poet's quest for a new source for his poetry and a movement in Chaucer's art away from the echoes of authority and towards, in Chaucer's words, "Somme new thinges" (III.1887), a new poetic direction, a new understanding of his art form and of his standing as a poet.

This study argues that Geffrey's journey is one of discovery, which becomes evident as the story unfolds. In order to find a new poetic voice, Geffrey has to go through the Temple of Venus with its false Goddess, the barrenness of the desert, rise above the sublunary sphere in his transcendental journey inward, "with fethers of Philosophy," and visit the Houses of Fame and Rumor. During this journey, Geffrey has to awaken to the power of his own thought and imagination, delve into the depths of his own mind in search for new material for his poetry, new experiences of life, new "tydynges." Geffrey has to learn many lessons. The most important is that a sole reliance on literary sources for poetic inspiration and truth is ultimately self-defeating. No single authority presents the absolute truth of the matter. On the contrary, as Chaucer will say in the Canterbury Tales, "Manye been the weyes espirituels that leden folk to oure Lord Jhesu Crist and to the regne of glorie" (The Parson's Tale 81-83): there are many ways to God and many, for Chaucer, to literary truth. Throughout this journey, Geffrey overcomes his delusion that poetry's only source is love experience. Poetry can come from the material drawn from experiences with the real world around him. Poems can be born out of rumors and sound and not necessarily proceed from the service to love.

Finally, Geffrey learns that an audience will not remember his name if he employs only somebody else's words and ideas and adheres rigidly to the authority of his predecessors. Immortality of one's name is reached not through counterfeiting the works of others, but through reflecting life experience of one's own countrymen. Throughout his alter ego Geffrey, Chaucer conveys his realization that in this world, where mutability touches everything, including Fame, true success and immortality spring from life experience, and from this source alone comes pure and lasting art, the only thing that can endure the test of time.

"Experience, though noon auctoritee" (Wife of Bath's Tale 1) validates the purpose of creative writing and blurs the lines of distinction between the artist and his work. The artist becomes inseparable from his art, and, thus, the immortality itself is reached through art. Therefore, Geffrey's answer to the question "Artow come hider to han fame?" (1872) at the end of the House of Fame by saying "I cam noght hyder, graunt mercy,/For no such cause, by my hed!" (1874-75), becomes clear. Chaucer recognizes that if his works are not about the world but of the world, then they will live forever, and his own poetic name with them.

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