Реферат: Chaucer And The House Of Fame Essay

and texts, who no longer are considered appropriate or informative. It would seem

that Chaucer’s depiction of The House of Rumour could also be correct. The power of

the written word has survived far better than that of the spoken. There are few if any

“rumours” that remain fresh and clear several hundred years later. The spoken word is

carried away in the wind, the constant mutterings often forgotten whereas the written

word has endured for many hundreds of years.

Clearly Chaucer has mixed feelings toward the power of literacy and orality. Both

can be enduring, but in an increasingly more literate society, the use of orality to

immortalise narrative events is rarely used. As Chaucer indicates, the written word

does remain in The House of Fame whereas the spoken word is more likely contained

within the constantly changing murmurings in The House of Rumour. However,

although Chaucer is himself a scholarly and academic man like Geffrey, he is still

rather mocking of the academic society and the scholars who seem to be permaently

fixed within the world of literature and relying entirely on book-learning, rather than

experiences from the events in the outside world of reality. Chaucer within his

description of The House of Fame also questions the relevance of literary works,

proving that the “fame” of authors and their works is a tenative one. Chaucer is clearly

reveals the beginnings of the English canon and the works contained within it. He

stresses the fluctuations of “fame” and how works can become a part an elite

grouping. The modern reader knows, that the books within the English canon may

gradually disappear or can reemerge, depending on the attitudes of people like

Geffrey, the readers and scholars, and of institutions that continually study the

“classical” texts. According to Chaucer, “fame” is not considered a noble

accomplishment and the result of chance rather than any literatary merit or virtue.