ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Geoffrey Chaucer's The House of Fame and the way in which the poet conceptualizes the poetic metamorphosis of history and reality in terms of alchemy. It shows how Chaucer develops an analogy between the capacity of words to imaginatively transform real events and real experiences, and the alchemical ideal of transforming material substances. Chaucer's interest in the practice of alchemy is demonstrated in 'The Canon's Yeoman's Tale', where the Yeoman tells his fellow pilgrims of his master's obsession with this secret art. Chaucer's description of the 'Wynged wondres' at this point in The House of Fame certainly corresponds with the alchemic symbolism that traditionally describes a conjunction of substances. Such explanations of Bosch's painting demonstrate the close proximity of the imaginative material shared between alchemy and the activities of the unconscious, and hence the relevance of such ideas to the effects that Chaucer seeks to create in The House of Fame.
