Philippa Morgan. Chaucer and the House of Fame. Carroll and Graf, 2004.
Chaucer and the House of Fame caught my eye for two reasons. One was the title: a novel about Chaucer that has something to do with his poem The House of Fame. The second was the cover illustration. It is a copy of Uccello’s The Hunt in the Forest, one of the most interesting paintings from the early Renaissance (c. 1470).
The main focus of the plot does indeed involve a hunt in a forest. In this case, it is the forest of the domain of an English ally in Aquitaine during the Hundred Years’ War. We know that Geoffrey Chaucer was a courtier first for John of Gaunt and then for King Edward III of England. He was dispatched several times to Europe for diplomatic purposes. The author imagines that a trip he took in 1378 was to persuade the Count of Guyac to remain loyal to England. At this point in the history, the French region of Aquitaine was still in British hands.
It happened that about twenty years prior, when Chaucer was serving the army, he was captured by the French and held for ransom at Guayac’s castle. (All we know from history is that he was captured and ransomed a few months later.) While there, he and the Countess developed a friendship. There was a mutual attraction, but there was no affair. In other words, it was a classic example of courtly love. The Countess of Guyac’s name was Rosamond, like the love object in Chaucer’s “Ballade to Rosamond.” The poem’s three stanzas each end with a refrain (modernized): “Though you do to me no dalliance.”
The most entertaining parts of Chaucer and the House of Fame are the many allusions to Chaucer’s work. Ironically, Chaucer’s “The House of Fame” is not one of them—except perhaps that Chaucer here is a guest in a castle where rumors fly and where temptation from Venus may lurk. On his way to Aquitaine, Chaucer passes through Canterbury, as most travelers do when going between London and Dover. He is on a mission, so he is limited in his excursions, but he tells his two traveling companions that he would like to return to Canterbury at some point to visit the Shrine of St. Thomas à Becket.
While en route to Aquitaine on the Continent, they encounter a group of about a hundred pilgrims, many on horse, some on foot, traveling to Compostela for the Shrine of St. James. Chaucer notes a few of them such as a garrulous well-dressed woman and a lean, wary rider who brings up the rear. One of the characters in the novel disguises himself as monk and calls himself Hubert. He knows a lot about hunting. These all foreshadow pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.
To entertain his traveling companions at one point, Chaucer makes up a story about a noble couple Arveragus and Dorigen. He names those characters after the names of two of the ships in the convoy they take from England to Aquitaine. He would later render the story in poetic form in the Franklin’s Tale. His two young traveling companions end up in a situation that can only be described as a bawdy farce similar to the Miller’s Tale. These are just a few examples.
The story itself centers around the Count who is killed on a boar hunt. It is clear that he was killed by a sword or dagger, not by the boar he had slain. In all this Chaucer is very much a passive character. He observes things, but keeps many of those things to himself. While intrigued by the mystery surrounding the Count’s death, Chaucer does not investigate it or make any inquiries; however, he does observe the unfolding of the solving of the mystery and draws a few conclusions. He, then, is the guileless and naïve observer of people as he presents himself in The Canterbury Tales.
In Chaucer and the House of Fame, if there is one active character, it the man who calls himself Hubert. He can best be described as a soulless serial killer who gets away with murder because he claims to be working for one political leader or another. This is no spoiler; he is not the murderer of the Count. He seems to serve no purpose in the story other than to suggest that some diplomacy like Chaucer’s is honorable and some like Hubert’s is dishonorable.
The story begins with what seems like an irrelevant chapter about the murder of another diplomat from England who had gone to Aquitaine a year before. It does tie in vaguely with some later action, but probably the most significant part of the chapter is that it contains another allusion. The diplomat’s name is Machaut. Machaut was a contemporary of Chaucer and arguably the greatest poet and composer in France at the time. He died in 1377, but not in the manner described in the novel. His poems of courtly love are said to have influenced Sir Geoffrey. Even here there is allusion. Medievalists would get a kick out of this.