The Dreamer
The first-person narrator of the poem recounts the events of a dream he had. In the Prologue, there is a reference to previous writers who have written about the subject of dreams. From this reference, it is often extrapolated that the dream here is a persona representing the author himself, Geoffrey Chaucer. Some translations have the eagle addressing the dream as Geoffrey, a purposeful misspelling perhaps intended to create space for ambiguity.
Nevertheless, the dreamer is situated as a highly educated and intelligent person. He is obviously very well-acquainted works of myth and literature. The dreamer seems very thin-skinned about his own literary efforts, calling the god of sleep, Morpheus, to place a curse upon critics of his work. The nature of the curse is so extreme, however, as to raise the specter of irony. The desire is for nothing less than the annihilation of all who have disparaged his talent.
The strange mixture of reality and illusion which characterizes dreams impacts him as the poem comes to close. Upon leaving the Temple of Venus, he discovers himself trapped in a dimensional void, alone and terrified. Having had enough of the dream world, he begs for escape from the delusions of his mind, but only the eagle—a figment of his dreams—answers his call.
The Eagle
The dreamer sees a mammoth eagle soaring high above him that appears to be made of gold. Following the vision of Aeneas and Dido, the eagle swoops down upon him and grips him within its talons. The eagle performs its duties in the service of the God Jupiter and informs the dreamer that he has been commissioned to carry him to the House of Fame.
During the flight, the eagle expounds at great philosophical length upon the complex manner in which fame works its utterly arbitrarily magic. The bird is critical of the dreamer’s lack of interest in experience and social interaction and looks down upon his reliance upon books as the key to his education. When he suggests that the dreamer learn about the stars by flying to the stars, the dreamer answers that he is afraid that they are so bright they would ruin his sight.
Scholarly analysis has assumed the position that the eagle in this poem is inspired by a bird with a similar mission in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The task in that work was to convey the author from the depths of purgatory to the heights of paradise. The significant point of departure between the two works is that the eagle also takes on the role of Dante’s guide through the underworld. That role is assigned to Virgil in Dante’s work and the fact the eagle is given more responsibility than mere means of transportation gives him far greater weight.
The Goddess Fame
Within the Hall of Fame, the dreamer sees a line of pillars representing famous authors in history, including Josephus, Ovid, and Lucan. Into this scene arrives with indulgent fanfare the goddess Fame, sister of Dame Fortune. The great hall is overwhelmed with masses of people from around the planet all making requests that the goddess bless their wishes.
Confirming the eagle’s knowledge, she proceeds to grant deserved fame to some, infamy instead of fame to others, a lesser fame than deserved to another crowd, more fame than is deserved to those whose works she enjoyed the most, a legacy of being adored by women to a group of idlers who have produced nothing, and everlasting fame to those who never sought it.
The whole point of the visit to Hall of Fame is that when the Goddess is handing out her decisions on who will become famous and who will not, it is completely arbitrary. Lacking not just logic, there is also a complete absence of any rational process in the decision-making. The bad writer who becomes famous and the great writer who lives in total obscurity is a matter of whim unrelated to either the author or the work.
