Memory And Textuality In Geoffrey Chaucer's The House Of Fame

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Memory and Textuality In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The House of Fame, the dreamer and the reader are led through a dream vision and are exposed to the technologies of memory as well as the link between textual recovery and the narrative of fame. The fragmentary nature of the dream allows the reader and the dreamer to explore the disconnected nature of philosophical concepts including fame and rumor. Furthermore, the use of the dream vision allows the narrator to present larger arguments about such concepts through the use of extraordinary visuals, conversations, and circumstances. In “Models for Memory” by Mary Carruthers, the concept of recollection as memory explores how visual memory has the ability to create a place where things can be stored. As in the House of Fame, there are visual storehouses used to compile all of the texts, traditions, and words that the dreamer encounters. For example, the glass temple of Venus acts as a storage place for important texts, such as Dido and the Aeneid. Additionally, the foundation of the House of Fame holds the names of those who have claimed their fame, though their fate is uncertain as it rests in ice. Furthermore, within the House of Fame, spoken and unspoken words are collected and placed into groups, only to be termed by Lady Fame as famous or infamous. Finally, the House of Rumour acts as a visual storehouse, thus providing a place of a visual transformation for truth and untruth to combine and depart out into the world. These models for memory work to showcase how fame functions throughout the House of Fame. …show more content…

The fragmentary nature of the dream, including how it ends with a scramble in the House of Rumour, makes the vision more relatable. As the dreamer

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