Chaucer on 'Speche': House of Fame, the Friar's Tale, and the Summoner's Tale

Author / Editor
Harwood, Britton J.

Title
Chaucer on 'Speche': House of Fame, the Friar's Tale, and the Summoner's Tale

Published
Chaucer Review 26 (1992): 343-49.

Description
The immobile house of Fame and the whirling cage of rumor are linked to each other much as a subject and a predicate are. FrT and SumT are held together by Chaucer's sense of sentences as "full-blown speech acts": in the former, the same words are used with two different objects in mind; in the latter, different illocutions are used with the same intended object.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
House of Fame.
Friar and His Tale.
Summoner and His Tale.