Through Glass Darkly: The Spatial Memory of the Temple of Venus in Chaucer's House of Fame

This paper offers an investigation of the architectural features of the Temple of Venus in Chaucer's "House of Fame." The space acts as a site for remembering the Classical past within the context of Christianity, providing Chaucer with a means for rediscovering antiquity. By looking at the ways this process is made manifest both within the poem and in the real world space of San Miniato al Monte, we see remembering is transformative, remaking and reshaping both spaces and time.