ABSTRACT
The tradition which connects the classical and medieval poetical device of ekphrasis with Geoffrey Chaucer’s use of such description in the House of Fame grows out of that common experience of Roman rhetorical education which all young poets experienced. Chaucer’s creation of descriptions of works of art in the House of Fame illustrates the interdependence of imitation and invention within the discipline of classical and medieval poetics. In the House of Fame all the usual Chaucerian topoi of the preface are fused and telescoped. The House of Fame may share with the Parliament the concluding theme of the poet’s desire to learn of ‘tidinges of Loves folke If they ben glade’, but in the Parliament this is only a small part of the poet’s object in poring over his books. If Nature is the goddess central to our understanding of the Parliament, Fame occupies a similar central area in the House of Fame.
