36
E
UR
A
MERICA
bafflement experienced by a budding poet and presents a case that
had no parallel in English literature before Milton (Howard, 1987:
252). In the
House of Fame
, Chaucer’s attitude toward literary
fame is ambivalent: on one hand, both his invocation to divine
inspiration and division of the work into three books bespeak
Chaucer’s intent to rival the ancients; on the other hand, Chaucer
was intimately aware of the emptiness of worldly fame. Perhaps it
is this insoluble dilemma that makes the
House of Fame
“the most
personal” of Chaucer’s writings (Brusendorff, 1968: 160).
In Chaucer’s lifetime, England was still “deeply feudalized
and ecclesiasticized,” and the most highly educated, despite the
worldliness of their behavior, still stuck to “a world-denying ideal”
(Spearing, 1985: 15). Therefore, the sophistication and
progressiveness reflected in Chaucer’s works surprise not only
today’s critics but also some British commentators in the fifteenth
and sixteenth century. As early as in the fifteenth century, John
Lydgate already hailed Chaucer as the English Petrarch whose
English works had sufficed to secure himself a place in the house of
fame (2003: 517).
46
Sir Philip Sidney, in his 1581
Apologie for
Poetrie
, similarly considered Chaucer’s achievement comparable to
those of his Italian forerunners
—
Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch
(1970: 7).
46
Til þat he cam, &, þoru
ȝ
his poetrie,
Gan oure tonge firste to magnifie,
And adourne it w
i
t
h
his elloquence—
To whom honour, laude, & reuerence,
ƿ
oru
ȝ
-oute þis londe
ȝ
oue be & songe,
So þat þe laurer of oure englishe tonge
Be to hym
ȝ
oue for his excellence,
—
Ʀ
i
ȝ
t a[s] whilom by ful hi
ȝ
e sentence,
Perpetuelly for a memorial,
Of Colu
m
pna by þe cardynal
To Petrak Frau
n
ceis was
ȝ
ouen in Ytaille—
ƿ
at þe report neu
er
e after faille,
Nor þe honour dirked of his name,
To be registered in þe house of fame