Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception(Chaucer Studies)

The questions of fame and reputation are central to Chaucer's writings; the essays here discuss their various treatments and manifestations. Fama, or fame, is a central concern of late medieval literature: where fame came from, who deserved it, whether it was desirable and how it was acquired and kept. An interest in fame was not new but was renewed and rethought within the vernacular revolutions of the later Middle Ages. The work of Geoffrey Chaucer collates received ideas on the subject of fama, both from the classical world and from the work of his contemporaries. Chaucer's place in these intertextual negotiations was readily recognized in his aftermath, as later writers adopted and reworked postures which Chaucer had struck, in their own bids for literary authority. This volume tracks debates onfama which were past, present and future to Chaucer, using his work as a centre point to investigate canon formation in European literature from the late Middle Ages and into the Early Modern period. Isabel Davis is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Birkbeck, University of London; Catherine Nall is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Contributors: Joanna Bellis, Alcuin Blamires, Julia Boffey, Isabel Davis, Stephanie Downes, A.S.G. Edwards, Jamie C. Fumo, Andrew Galloway, Nick Havely, Thomas A. Prendergast, Mike Rodman Jones, William T. Rossiter, Elizaveta Strakhov.

Table of Contents:
Introduction - Isabel Davis Chaucer Joins the Schiera: The House of Fame, Italy and the Determination of Posterity - William T. Rossiter "I wolde [...] han hadde a fame": Dante, Fame and Infamy in Chaucer's House of Fame - Nick R Havely "And kis the steppes where as thow seest pace": Reconstructing the Spectral Canon in Statius and Chaucer - Elizaveta Strakhov '"I nolde sette at al that noys a grote": Repudiating Infamy in Troilus and Criseyde and House of Fame - Alcuin Blamires The Early Reception of Chaucer's The House of Fame - Julia Boffey and A S G Edwards Fame's Penitent: Deconstructive Chaucer Among the Lancastrians - Andrew Galloway After Deschamps: Chaucer's French Fame - Stephanie Downes "Fresch anamalit termes": The Contradictory Celebrity of Chaucer's Aureation - Joanna Bellis Chaucer the Puritan - Mike Rodman Jones Revenant Chaucer: Early Modern Celebrity - Thomas A Prendergast Ancient Chaucer: Temporalities of Fame - Jamie C. Fumo Bibliography

About the Author :
A. S. G. Edwards is Honorary Professor of Medieval Manuscripts at the University of Kent at Canterbury. JULIA BOFFEY is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary University of London. MIKE RODMAN JONES is Associate Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Literature in the School of English, University of Nottingham. WILLIAM ROSSITER Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, University of East Anglia.

Review :
Will be valuable not only to medievalists and Chaucerians, but also to those working in classical reception and the Renaissance. [T]his volume ultimately testifies to the fact that Geoffrey, in the House of Fame, won the favor of the supposedly indiscriminate Lady Fama, as Chaucer's name does not fragment into the mere contours of letters in the historical records, even if it is appropriated for diverse purposes and roles throughout history. This collection, and the series as a whole, is a required resource for students and scholars of Chaucer. Highly recommended.