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dramatizes his understanding of the nature of fame in the
House of
Fame
, wherein he likewise shows an acute awareness of the
evanescence and emptiness of earthly fame. As in Petrarch’s case,
Chaucer’s consciousness of the insignificance of worldly fame did
not entirely dampen his longing for literary acclaim, but he
eschewed making explicit his yearning. Since Chaucer was keenly
aware of the Italian literary landscape through his reading of the
“Three Crowns of Florence” and his several sojourns in Italy, this
paper is to examine the attitudes of Petrarch and Chaucer toward
fame and to analyze the extent to which Petrarch, as both an older
contemporary of Chaucer and a pioneer of Italian humanism,
might have informed Chaucer.
While Chaucer’s writings were greatly informed by a trio of
Italian literary giants
－
Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch
－
Petrarch is
singled out in this study because he has conducted a profound and
systematic dissection of worldly fame, especially its brevity and
triviality.
1
More importantly, despite his acknowledgment of the
paltriness of fame, Petrarch on various occasions openly gave voice
to his longing for literary fame.
On the other hand, though Chaucer’s knowledge of
Petrarch’s
oeuvre
is limited, Petrarch’s resounding reputation as
“poet laureate” had made a profound impact on Chaucer during
his first visit to Italy in 1372-1373 (Howard, 1987: 188-189).
Chaucer was deeply impressed by the high esteem “the vocation of
poet” commanded in contemporary Italy, where the poet enjoyed a
considerable degree of independence instead of remaining
subservient to court or church (Pearsall, 1992: 103). Intriguingly,
some ideas revealed in the
House of Fame
are analogous to those
1
This does not mean that the other two are insensible of the transience and
emptiness of artistic or literary fame. Dante’s depiction of Oderisi, a foremost
illuminator in the latter half of the thirteenth century, highlights the emptiness of
artistic achievements. Even though Dante anticipates that as a poet his fame will
eclipse that of his precursors, this statement is gloomily couched because Dante
believes that his glory is destined to dim like that of his forerunners (Dante, 2003:
177, 179, 185).
