2013/10/01 by T. S. Miller · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Medieval Literature and History
paper · doi:10.5325/chaucerrev.48.2.0129
openalex publication_date 2013/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Honey, your love makes me feel like Geoffrey ChaucerStuck without a tale on a flying saucer.1 During his voyage through the heavens in the House of Fame, the self-deprecating narrator “Geffrey” expresses anxiety about being “stellifye[d]” before his time, that is, physically translated into a heavenly body after the fashion of deceased classical poets and heroes. Geoffrey Chaucer himself was in fact formally stellified only in 1981, when the main-belt asteroid now known as 2984 Chaucer was discovered, and this essay will explore the poet's many such inscriptions into the cultural cosmos of the Space Age and beyond. While studies like Steve Ellis's groundbreaking Chaucer at Large and Candace Barrington's more recent American Chaucers have tracked a staggering number of contemporary creative responses to Chaucer,2 both books have almost nothing to say about the poet's reception and refashioning in science fiction, actually a vast and complex subsection of his popular reception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Because science fiction as a genre remains notoriously difficult to define and delimit, this essay will necessarily cover examples of Chaucerian influence, allusion, and general reception scattered across what is sometimes termed “speculative fiction,” the category that also includes science fiction's neighboring genres of fantasy and horror, and everything in-between.3 Even so, the emphasis throughout will remain on science fiction proper, because, perhaps contrary to expectation, we find the most numerous and indeed most elaborate responses to Chaucer in the harder sort of science fiction rather than in medievalizing high fantasy. Whether it is due to the more canonical ambitions of many science fiction writers or a more fundamental congruence between Chaucer's works and the themes and fixations of modern science fiction, it seems that speculative fiction writers have most enthusiastically translated Chaucer to the stars.4In what follows I have endeavored to avoid mere allusion-chasing, and I adduce these many examples of Chaucerian influence in order to address issues of broader import for the author's reception and indeed for the history of science fiction itself, including, for instance, the question of what science fiction's reception of Chaucer can tell us about the genre's historically vexed relationship with the literary canon. Here I am indebted to Stephanie Trigg's pioneering work in tracing how various communities of Chaucer's readers have placed themselves in an exclusive communion with the author in order to trade in his cultural capital, in Bourdieu's sense.5 At the same time, the evidence from science fiction challenges Trigg's specific observation elsewhere that, in “the more general reception of Chaucer outside the academy, … the specific understanding of Chaucerian poems is channelled along quite narrow, even predictable, courses.”6 Of course, standard interpretations of the most familiar passages and characters from the Tales still dominate what I am calling the science fiction Chaucer, but we can also find far less predictable patterns of reception, including sophisticated responses to the Troilus, the House of Fame, and even the Legend of Good Women. Perhaps science fiction by its very nature has been more receptive to the genre of the dream vision; there has even been one attempt to claim the House of Fame as “England's earliest science fiction.”7 Indeed, as the modern genre of celestial voyages, science fiction has frequently literalized Chaucer's own various heavenly as to the in a complex of the the and the we find in the genre's various of Chaucer an between both and order to this body of this essay will in of Chaucerian reception in science works the to of the poet's Chaucer's in examples of American science fiction as of a literary both and Chaucer's in science fiction to in we by that it is to a Chaucer but a very in has a history in science in the of this essay that of through Space and as the work of science fiction of but also in a of the genre's with the of the has its “the on one for to science fiction fiction's very for the for the Chaucerian in that sometimes to and the influence of Chaucer, sometimes and sometimes the nature of the remains to American science fiction, in and as and the of the of and as works of speculative fiction, we find the as a for into but in its more this will of the most such works on Chaucer's the most science fiction of the Tales the genre itself, science fiction's most the the of has but the to the on the a difficult of that from the order to themselves the of of has been to the the to tell one on with the and the known as the to at the the will a to one of the but the the in than the of a at the of this is to say nothing of the and of the the we the of the Chaucer's reception elsewhere in popular we will that the that more or less to what is, to the most familiar modern the or tale I will in this but am in the of Chaucer's I the for in a it is for that the perhaps most in order to himself into the high canonical literary a that from many science fiction writers to sometimes or the that remains even in his of when the the of the in to the we this in the of the that the to has science fiction for his on the of the and his to the of literary studies by works and in the of the of Chaucer and the author as to the and address the of his own is the that high in science fiction, but own Chaucerian the of his Chaucerian in both the and the of genre science fiction that the author the of his from the an from that was in includes of his as in the of a of has to a to a the in order to for the an for to the of from his a to a literalized Indeed, as Chaucer's the of the the celestial of the and Chaucer's into a celestial of now of its but its of or to the in only an for but also for its with the of on the of his has also translated the Chaucerian of or into a when I through the of after the was by his the for to his but his Chaucer's in a to explore a of and his to the the and as the that of these and Chaucer has the that will the to the in more than this a than the of on a of and to the but the that its to Chaucer most is the in a to the of in most of in order to the a to a has to a makes a to Chaucer's the it of and on popular of the Chaucer's Tales and the of remain works that find readers to this very can Chaucer in the the a is the of the in and still the has with a of Chaucer's of on the of his a of Trigg's of Chaucer's modern communities almost Here the of Chaucer's his to the and the through his of the to that same nature into its we this as science fiction, that even in and will the category of the this is an of or science its in a the to across a with both and but also the with a of that have been in and of and is speculative fiction's but Chaucer himself in these Chaucer to with the of I will only this of a from of the is for both its of Chaucer and the in it the of a to the of the with a in the of for in Chaucer's the the to his from the of by a himself a to and a of the to from and in order to to to have the one contemporary genre that can that from popular in the but At the same time, to Chaucer seems at with the of Chaucer's in the by Indeed, the notoriously and without from Chaucer of or and has his to a modern only by a order into the by of a and by the of Chaucer's to more to of a has translated the of the Tales into a of and most of the rather than even Chaucer for or to along for the to to the of the to we will in the the patterns of Chaucerian reception in these as of literary Chaucer as for in that Chaucer in less I to science fiction for examples of Chaucerian and influence the that I many more such examples than I but also to in these a of the or poems to as has “the Chaucer has in himself in even his work as a has a about of these works more on a of as as of “the a understanding of the of his and the of his by we less with these or as of or with on the or of more to is the in of these science fiction to perhaps Chaucer only in order to on his cultural capital, at the same time, and the poet's in order to the of his as of the literary a we will that is but Chaucer can from a of Chaucerian science fiction will we with a that at seems on Chaucer, in both and the follows a of a on the of in his to to the and the on a of the and its more popular that have as a by to the such as and both of the of with to one an to in the can to a a but the such that physically with the this attempt to into the and to a that of this the an as from to and attempt to from with the to to his has to of that his is as it is Chaucer I to a of Geoffrey the of we to in with his own time, and to along to the a in the his to Chaucer, literary to the an almost of the sort that has tracked in Chaucerian the on science and its in we from a that has the and the to to this that is, the dream of that will the from itself, and that Chaucer and only Chaucer can and is the of and the own is is Geoffrey is is with to and the of for and of of that the as the we can to the of this with Chaucer as of literary the works of Chaucer have as the for the dream that but same works have also to the that is the Chaucer, both the of and the of as through the in canonical it is science fiction that can the with but more with science fiction itself, dream quite for the and that the genre on it a in this of the science fiction Chaucer, it that science fiction Chaucer as a for by of the of science fiction the I find the of one of the to to find Chaucer one of the most the of I this the I was perhaps that have been for or at has the of science we a science fiction to question when we that was a to on the between of the and the but the that one of the have a for the with science but on of the of the that is modern science attempt to a between science and the literary more when the its the in before Chaucer, to a for Chaucer's a to this to Chaucer, but his after a for a a for a can with but with your but to the it to the for but the can both by a of science fiction, and the in as we “the from the and the with to a the of history such that the has known for the has a science fiction in a to Chaucer is the only to the that it that the can by Chaucer's perhaps in this of the to for the of Chaucer a for the we what to Chaucer, for in the that, even in a tale on Chaucer and his the himself himself in science fiction but also by of course, remains in the of its Chaucerian many examples of Chaucer's reception in science fiction the more of to the his or or of these very of with Chaucer's but also for with Chaucer, one of the more and indeed more of is to Chaucer and his in to the us for a to and that of science fiction, I one of the more of Chaucer in At the of and from the to an of in the we find the same that for through its Chaucer as the of a of as canonical as in that the from is I it due to the of of of that to in to the as and for is and in of I that the for of or I will that, many writers to this rather than Chaucer's with of own as a in the of the twentieth and indeed as a the literary of as a science fiction will with in of through and and and and and and and and a at the of and the in on the to due to the of your at the on in and tell that I and love still what and your on the of and when for that will and when by will rather that have even I and we to will and your and your without a in the of for books there both and when at and when as as the of a and with and of the to when to and and what the when your from and the on that we will in this to the of and to with the before the of the and at of contemporary for instance, or for the as when it also the almost to most of the in of Chaucer's that his Chaucer and his for the of in an of in own when and its that will that of has to is a both and it on the for in the in a in love with a that it is to as a of a has Chaucer's anxiety about his own reception into a that challenges the of both and high canonical from Chaucer in this and has very to his as the of own I say that Chaucer as but the of and of the that the reception of his works and the in have to like Chaucer for science fiction by both and the very that science of Chaucer one of the more responses to his work in science fiction, but it is by the only one of the with the Legend of Good in of contemporary fiction, is also a in the science fiction reception of Chaucer, of a the genre to to Chaucer of is the of the a of that with Chaucer's Legend of Good but also includes of the of of House of of Legend of Good Women. by by a to own in love into a of the and to and of various high fantasy and science fiction of During this the what have as the of the Legend to its that one more the House of Fame than the as a sort of that also with the of and the the of in the of the and the of the House of Fame in its on the of as a of familiar of on a in the as a by of the fact that author in the of of is to question Chaucer or to the of a Chaucer of his of but can as own of At the same time, the the that only a can a in it seems about own still to so, to by the of that both the and the to the of science fiction the genre to a in Chaucer, even as it to in the same literary and as a of of responses to Chaucer in science fiction, with the being perhaps the of Chaucerian science fiction that has by in that we in to its as the most of to Chaucer in science fiction in the of such the very of on the Chaucerian for studies of the author's reception, without to Chaucer in the it remains to the author an at this is perhaps the of science fiction in Chaucerian most into Of the number of that I have have as even to a genre we Indeed, we that of Chaucerian a more complex with the than of the but only in the that Chaucer, but this to his in a very to the to the we that a in the far has the in to the Geoffrey and as a that the of the in the of the of the to Chaucer as that it is and the the about of of Chaucer's as own as Chaucer's own of more like what I have of but in a a is that, a an that Chaucer without of the poet's for the to in that how and has to Chaucer without there is a to how a by of its being can with or to Chaucer, when himself such I tale in science fiction, that to Chaucerian also only we the to more various works of fantasy of and without Chaucerian but one of Chaucer's for a more that of the the of a in a by the narrator to that, on his will an from both and in order to the the in his own the himself as with the into and it to the is from sometimes his but only for the of as indeed seems to in the only for the of have to in a that that the to I have to at of I have the to me a the in is that and the of the the Chaucerian seems an at I even the work as an attempt to Chaucer's that we claim this as an of but Chaucer has but of a that to we the tale for to Chaucer in science fiction, we will find in but of many of these the of of the of the these as in remains a of literary or that of it as that to Chaucer more in science fiction with a for general as cultural outside the remains Chaucer, as canonical as but more the of “the we find of Chaucer for the work of science fiction author and more from the for the of to on in rather than a speculative fiction the in a by from the that only makes it as far as the narrator the as … the for and been of with Chaucer's work as the only a between the of the and the can in more complex in the of of and to Chaucer's nothing but in the its the to say am to the more I me I have a of and literary and of Chaucer's one more in the but it an in the on the of of his the almost there was a to that the of a outside have and the the of in more than the of the Tales in a a as a can its cultural and into a without necessarily how many of the to the what that with the and the his actually question we about work is his Chaucerian the of the of for or cultural capital, or in these to Chaucer in of and we also that has a for with for his relationship with the cultural of the the of science Indeed, the of most literary a frequently in author and the science fiction is a of and the of the in the makes this fact the also on that with to a historically to the Chaucer can sometimes of the science fiction even themselves as as for his we the of Chaucerian and as to cultural capital, or order to the literary but to with perhaps in a to science fiction for the of of that in his essay of that in when with his and the more in in or of the of the a in a was indeed in a it was into the this the even of the most I that I to the of this of the a in a perhaps the in the the for to such Chaucerian across his works perhaps nothing as the of how his with a the or even in the or the with a sometimes to cultural in the science fiction and an one to a from but the of can a of a when the Chaucerian far into the one of the without in science fiction remains to when the in science fiction without the of Chaucer or his such Chaucer's of or have a in the fiction, and these for as a the most of a without Chaucer in in in the in and on an that, like the has more than a for the many of the its and of the of as the to before the the was on with a of more than its a of and what on the of a its a this have been by a that the for even the of the to as it in the of the the himself a and the about the of the reception of and the is, a about and and in and about Geoffrey Chaucer or seems far more with than Chaucer in his own with the Of course, we say that the of the of responses for the and the but like in the as a more for the than Chaucerian of its rather even of the the seems to have than in the and we can the of the to the of in the and Chaucer's a of been at as the can Chaucer without in Perhaps like to or with Chaucer's works on the but an in and of Chaucer's cultural in this it is like Chaucer has from “the in that there of Chaucers without Chaucer, with its own this we have science fiction writers Chaucer in order to Chaucer, as of a to the of and sometimes indeed of what of works of science fiction that more of the the of the works to Chaucer in one or in of Chaucerian science fiction have to Chaucer in a that and less to to a science fiction in its for and through a of Chaucer's and by that, science fiction in has a genre has been has to and and poems as even in the as indeed still a poems a of is at the of the of and was to in the of from and follows a fantasy a on the of the and the by an was of as a the a of for his as was as his of Chaucer will in the an of the from the I and for the the on the and seems to have been the of the and While is a that Chaucer in the that perhaps the in the of also to the or the flying of the as a his on and in the with was by a is a of from the a is of the narrator is to the of the by the fantasy of an that the has in of for as a of the about science and the for its more with the and of Age science fiction, and even Chaucer's is to the same of in and the of the in of the of of the is as an science fiction seems to have in the of with the to at a fact that us the of his Chaucer's in science fiction we that sometimes it seems to the rather than Chaucer on science fiction can for and At the same time, we can also find Chaucer and his in less genre in this with I to that “speculative or in order to such an of speculative as or even in the and the there to the genre as a and a of or even as speculative than fiction writers also this a its it as of the more to it the one of the more of the through the of a the and tale in a the to than it Chaucerian that I on is than the than a of its the is a of the from in and with a emphasis on readers find it that to a classical in a in the has in fact one of the more Chaucerian the from the on Chaucer's a that more Chaucerian is in fact quite but a the Chaucerian to have a in the science fiction to it seems that we find this of Chaucerian at still that it have this the we can find one of the science fiction Chaucer that Chaucer's I have tale or the that a work of Chaucerian in a genre it was by than Geoffrey Chaucer or rather the as has been in the a we to work as science fiction at we in this and in the of the of to the very of science before and after science fiction author and science fiction as we to when we say the of what as science fiction has been by its and the of its rather than in the to the and as I that as a Chaucer his of and of Chaucerian to a in the poet's popular reception and I his work the examples of the science fiction reception of Chaucer for of these the science fiction and with the a by of to we have or about for and his and the is Chaucer's in the of and of on the of an the of for of the by a and a of the of in about the of the to Chaucer in the the for in is a one we feel many of readers your in of and a on of his and the the as of its from a of this Chaucer with an on with the in only has the science fiction the of the Chaucer with a to Chaucer is now formally in the of science fiction is, at can in the of the the for how and history into his own of fiction, to the Tales the of the also to a science fiction from a more has popular science fiction in a as when Chaucer books including by this of science a is the of the of the is a and the of the to with a medievalizing and the of into the of the that was actually but at the by Of course, the of the Chaucer in the of science fiction only to the that the cultural it and themselves Indeed, we in that these science fiction have as the popular with relationship to science on a and the seems to a for the science fiction that to more than the of a of and the about we with more and the between work and the of fiction, in the speculative fiction has that the from the by a of of the fiction, and has himself that that there between the of and Chaucerian and the contemporary of I will the far but it perhaps the science fiction in has been receptive to the the more its on the of its that science fiction readers to a notoriously genre that on its of we that science fiction been at a before and to it in speculative fiction a the by on its the himself both a and a science fiction has also his Chaucerian in the science fiction by from science fiction works translated into in was in that popular is the of like science fiction in Chaucer and his by us that the of Chaucerian reception have been and in the Chaucer's in at has a popular of for the Chaucer's reception in science fiction is a is it an I it to this essay with a of science fiction in Chaucer's far from in has into the of Indeed, recent in literary studies as a science fiction have to that one can of science fiction as an the influence of this on modern science Chaucer to Chaucer's reception in for a many of the Chaucer that at into this most I have Chaucerian science fiction in the examples I have far define a as but in for the in Chaucer as of the literary by of the to a of a Chaucer is himself an it that American to science fiction in to author the Chaucer's reception in his as a with it is that one of works has the and in the for in this Chaucer has one that both cultural as as cultural the a for the in a