Chaucer and the "House of Fame"

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.
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