FREE THE HOUSE OF FAME PDF Oliver Harris | 336 pages | 17 May 2016 | Vintage Publishing | 9780224101875 | English | London, United Kingdom Chaucer: The House of Fame The House of Fame Hous of Fame in the original spelling is a Middle English poem by Geoffrey Chaucerprobably written between andmaking it one of his earlier works. It was most likely written after The Book of the Duchessbut its chronological relation to Chaucer's other early poems is uncertain. The House of Fame is over 2, lines long in three books and takes the form of a dream vision composed in octosyllabic couplets. Upon falling asleep the poet finds himself in a glass temple adorned with images of the famous and their deeds. With an eagle as a guide, he meditates on the nature of fame and the trustworthiness of recorded renown. This allows Chaucer to contemplate the role of the poet in reporting the lives of the famous and how much truth there is in what can The House of Fame told. The work begins with a poem in which Chaucer speculates on the nature and causes of dreams. He claims that he will tell his audience about his "wonderful" dream "in full. Chaucer then writes an invocation to the god of sleep asking that none, whether out of ignorance or spite, misjudge the meaning of his dream. The first book begins when, on the night of the tenth of December, Chaucer has a dream in which he is inside a temple made of glass, filled with beautiful art and shows of wealth. After seeing an image of VenusVulcanand Cupidhe deduces that it is a temple to Venus. Chaucer explores the temple until he finds a brass tablet recounting the Aeneid. This prefigures his interest in wronged women in The Legend of Good The House of Famewritten in the mids, which depicts various women of Greek mythology, including Dido, Medea, and Ariadne. Chaucer finishes recounting the Aeneid from the brass tablet, and The House of Fame decides to go outside to see if he can find anyone who can tell him where he The House of Fame. He finds that outside the The House of Fame is a featureless field, and prays to Christ to save him from hallucination and illusion. The House of Fame looks up to the sky, and sees a golden eagle that begins to descend towards him, marking the end of the first book. When the second book begins, Chaucer has attempted to flee the swooping eagle, but is caught and lifted up into the sky. Chaucer faints, and the eagle rouses him by calling his name. The eagle explains that he is a servant The House of Fame Jovewho seeks to reward Chaucer for his unrewarded devotion to Venus The House of Fame Cupid by sending him to the titular House of the goddess Famewho hears all that happens in the world. Chaucer is skeptical that Fame could possibly hear everything in the world, prompting the eagle to explain how such a thing happens. The House of Fame concept of the natural abode was an explanation for how gravity functions: a stone dropped from any height will fall down to reach the ground, smoke will rise into the air, and rivers always lead to the sea. The eagle gives further evidence of this by comparing sound to a ripple. Later, the Eagle offers to tell Chaucer more about the starsbut Chaucer declines, saying he is The House of Fame old. They arrive at the foot of the House of Fame at the beginning of the third book, and Chaucer describes what he sees. The House of Fame is built atop a massive rock that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be ice inscribed with the names of the famous. He notices many other names written in the ice that had melted to the The House of Fame of illegibility, and deduces that they melted because they were not in the shadow of the House of Fame. Chaucer climbs the hill, and sees the House of Fame, and thousands of mythological musicians still performing their music. He enters the palace itself, and sees Fame. He describes her as The House of Fame countless tongues, eyes, and ears, to represent the spoken, seen, and heard aspects of fame. She also has partridge wings on her heels, to represent the speed at which fame can move. The House of Fame observes Fame as she metes out fame and infamy to groups of people who arrive, whether or not they deserve or want it. At one point, a man who is most likely Herostratus asks for infamy, which Fame grants to him. Soon, Chaucer leaves the House of Fame, and is taken by an The House of Fame man to a "place where [Chaucer] shall hear many things". In a valley outside of the house, Chaucer sees a large, rapidly spinning wicker house that he guesses to be at least miles in length. The house makes incredibly loud noises as it spins, and Chaucer remarks that "if the house had stood upon the OiseI believe truly that it might easily have been heard it as far as Rome ". Chaucer enters the house, and sees a massive crowd of people, representing the spread of rumor and hearsay. The poem ends at this point, and the identity of this man remains a mystery. The House of Fame is held up by a number of large columns, and standing atop them are a number of famous poets and scholars, who carry the fame of their most prominent stories on their shoulders. The poem also appears to be influenced by Boethius 's The Consolation of Philosophy. At the end of the work, the "man of greet auctoritee" who reports tidings of love has been interpreted as a reference to either the wedding of Richard II and Anneor the betrothal of Philippa of Lancaster and John I of Portugalbut Chaucer's typically irreverent treatment of great events makes this difficult to confirm. Other scholars have put forth the alternative hypothesis that the man of great authority is Elijah, or another of the Hebrew prophets. As with several of Chaucer's other works, The House of Fame is apparently unfinished—although whether the ending was indeed left incomplete, has been lost, or is a deliberate rhetorical deviceis uncertain. The poem contains the earliest known uses in the English language of the terms galaxy and Milky Way :. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Dream visions and other poems. New York: W. The Riverside Chaucer 3rd ed. Boston, Mass. Retrieved The Temple of Fame: A Vision. London: Printed for Bernard Lintott, The House of Fame. Geoffrey Chaucer. Categories : Poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer Visionary poems. Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from April All articles needing additional references AC with 0 elements. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Wikisource has original text related to this article: The House of Fame. The House of Fame - Wikisource, the free online library The octosyllabic measure in which it is written -- the same which the author of "Hudibras" used with such admirable effect -- is excellently adapted for the vivid descriptions, the lively sallies of humour and sarcasm, with which the poem abounds; and when the poet actually does get to his subject, he treats it with a zest, and a corresponding interest on the part of the reader, which are scarcely surpassed by the best of The Canterbury Tales. The poet, however, The House of Fame long on the way to the House of Fame; as Pope says in his advertisement, the reader who would compare his with Chaucer's poem, "may begin with [Chaucer's] third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title. Then he relates that, having The House of Fame asleep, he fancied himself within a temple of glass -- the The House of Fame of Venus - - the walls of which were painted with the story of Aeneas. The paintings are described at length; and then The House of Fame poet tells us that, coming out of the temple, he found himself on a vast sandy plain, and saw high in heaven an eagle, that began to descend towards him. With the prologue, the first book numbers lines; of which only -- more than are actually concerned with or directly lead towards the real subject of the poem -- are given here. The second book, containing lines, of which will be found in this edition, is wholly devoted to the voyage from the Temple of Venus to the House of Fame, which the dreamer accomplishes in the eagle's claws. The bird has been sent by Jove to do the poet some "solace" in reward of his labours for the cause of Love; and during the transit through the air the messenger discourses obligingly and learnedly with his human burden on the theory of sound, by which all that is spoken must needs reach the House of Fame; and on other matters suggested by their errand and their observations by the way. The third book of lines, only a score of which, just at The House of Fame outset, have been omitted brings us to the real pith of the poem. It finds the poet close to the House of Fame, built on a rock of ice engraved with names, many of which are half-melted away.