Building Class and Gender into Chaucer's 'Hous'

Author / Editor
Harwood, Britton J.

Title
Building Class and Gender into Chaucer's 'Hous'

Published
Britton J. Harwood and Gillian R. Overing, eds. Class and Gender in Early English Literature: Intersections (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 95-111.

Description
An analogy between gender and class applied to HF reveals that Lady Fame assumes a typical paternal role in naming the tidings that exit the House of Rumor. Although Chaucer's source is Ovid, he divides Fame's house along strict class lines--the house of twigs and the palace--suggesting that the poem's "historical conflicts ... are reflected in its own contradictions" and that "gender and class ... unite."

Alternative Title
Class and Gender in Early English Literature: Intersections.

Chaucer Subjects
House of Fame.