Chaucer as 'Vates'?: Reading Ovid Through Dante in the House of Fame, Book 3

Author / Editor
Fumo, Jamie C.

Title
Chaucer as 'Vates'?: Reading Ovid Through Dante in the House of Fame, Book 3

Published
Janet Levarie Smarr, ed. Writers Reading Writers: Intertextual Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Literature in Honor of Robert Hollander. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007, pp. 89-108.

Description
Fumo compares and contrasts Chaucer's invocation of Apollo in HF to its source in Dante's "Paradiso," arguing that Chaucer shares with Dante a "fundamental interest in defining the poet's role" as a "vessel of prophetic truth." Both poets are concerned with the potential disconnect between the "transcendent experience of inspiration" and the "reality of failure." Christian truth serves to bridge that disconnect for Dante, whereas Chaucer is "more interested in the problem than the solution" and thereby more faithful to classical tradition.

Contributor
Smarr, Janet Levarie, ed.

Alternative Title
Writers Reading Writers: Intertextual Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Literature in Honor of Robert Hollander.

Chaucer Subjects
House of Fame
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.