Book 1 of The House of Fame opens with a proem
discussing dreams and dream theory; this leads into an
invocation to the god of sleep to help him tell the tale
of his dream. The dream begins with the narrator, Gef-
frey, fi nding himself in a glass temple, its walls lined
with paintings of the gods and with brass tablets
engraved with the text of Virgil’s Aeneid. Through this,
Chaucer retells the tale, with great attention paid to
Dido’s plight. Geffrey contemplates the many loves lost
and betrayed in classic literature and leaves the temple
to fi nd a beautiful golden eagle soaring above him.
In book 2, after pleading to Venus to assist him in
telling his tale, Geffrey resumes the story. The golden
eagle swoops down and picks up Geffrey in “hys
grymme pawes stronge” (l. 541) and tells him that he is
to be taken to the House of Fame as a reward for his
hermit-like life of reading and writing late into the
night after a long day’s work. As they travel, they
embark on a long discussion of philosophy and the
meaning of sound and language; ultimately, they tour
the cosmos, discussing the sun, stars, and galaxies.
They soon arrive at the house and hear the cacophony
of voices within the house, both of “feir speche and
chidynges” (l. 1028).
Book 3 begins with the narrator’s appeal to Apollo,
god of light, to grant him abilities in the “art poetical”
(l. 1095), so that he may describe the House of Fame.
The dream begins again, and the narrator climbs a high
rock to reach the house, which is built on a feeble
foundation of ice. The house is an ornately decorated
castle, carved with the names of the many who have
achieved fame. It is fi lled with music, talking, crowds,
and magicians, lending it a carnival-like atmosphere.
Geffrey then enters a court of royalty and the wealthy
as Fame arrives: a goddess with many eyes, changing
in size and shape, with winged feet. The walls of the
hall are lined with portraits of writers, poets, and histo-
rians, representing their famous subjects. The crowds
within beg the goddess for fame, which is granted arbi-
trarily by the fi ckle deity.
Speaking to Aeolus, the god of the winds, Geffrey
admits that he does not seek fame but wishes to fi nd
tidings, or tales of love, for his books. He leaves the
House of Fame and comes to the House of Daedalus, a
cage-like house of twigs, seemingly full of the tidings
that Geffrey was looking for. But all that is passed on is
gossip and lies, blown about by the winds. Frustrated,
he fi nds a group of men talking of love but is left unful-
fi lled as they run away when he approaches. Geffrey
fi nally fi nds a man who seems to be of “gret auctoritee”
(l. 2158), leading the reader to believe that he has
fi nally come upon someone who can offer “some good
to lernen” (l. 1088), but as soon as the man is found,
the text ends, left unfi nished. It is not known if the
work was ever fi nished, if it was fi nished and lost, or if
Chaucer intentionally left this incomplete ending to
prove just how unreliable a text can be.
The House of Fame is a self-conscious literary text,
concerned with the poet and the poetic tradition, where
even the narrator, Geffrey, dreams after reading late
into the night. The dream is about literature and fame,
specifi cally about how to achieve it as an author, and
whether fame and renown can be trusted. While adopt-
ing the traditional dream-vision forms, Chaucer uses
this poem to turn many literary traditions on their
heads. Many aspects of the poem parody the revered
works of men “of gret auctoritee” (l. 2158), such as Vir-
gil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Dante’s Divine
Comedy. Chaucer also pokes fun at himself through
Geffrey, portraying him as a bookworm who lives like a
hermit, reading into the late hours of the night until he
is dazed and as “domb as any stoon” (l. 656).
Analysis of the poem over the years has discussed
Chaucer’s use of other EPIC poems and their authors,
such as his possible parody of the Divine Comedy, and
the signifi cance of the many epic and literary texts that
Chaucer acknowledges with The House of Fame. Recent
criticism also focuses on discourse, language, and the
“voice”—Chaucer’s narrative voice and subversive
voices within the text, such as the voice of the eagle, an
unusual mouthpiece for their debate on discourse, and
Chaucer’s attention to Dido, giving her a freedom in
speech that she never had in the Aeneid.
FURTHER READING
Kordecki, Lesley. “Subversive Voices in Chaucer’s House of
Fame.” Exemplaria 11, no. 1 (1999): 53–77.
Steinberg, Glenn A. “Chaucer in the Field of Cultural Pro-
duction: Humanism, Dante, and the House of Fame.” The
Chaucer Review 35, no. 2 (2000): 182–203.
Catherine Ann Perkins220 HOUSE OF FAME, THE