ABSTRACT
The uncertainty o f direction and the failure to conclude The House of Fame were not so great as to lead Chaucer utterly to disclaim it, for he takes credit for it (rather oddly) as a love poem in Prologue F, 417, to The Legend of Good Women, and he revokes it with the rest of his secular work in The Retractation. Only three manuscripts and two early prints o f The House of Fame survive, however, while for the next poem, The Parliament of Fowls, there are 14 manuscripts and Caxton’s print. It is clearly more successful. It is complete and more controlled, though it too has its underlying puzzles, as well as pur suing the same quest. In it Chaucer shows a deepening Italian influence. Boccaccio now becomes more important. Boccaccio’s most important gift, no doubt in conjunction with Dante, is to show the way to the more expansive five-stress line o f ten or eleven syllables, with rhyme. From now on Chaucer counts syllables like an Italian or French poet, and good English accountant. In this poem he uses with fully developed skill the seven-line stanza, rhyming ah ah h c c, the so-called rhyme royal. The poet’s choice o f metre is highly important both technically and symbolically. It tells us so much about his power and feeling. Here Chaucer is confidently expansive, has much to say, and in control. His diction also becomes more elaborate.
