In this essay, I give an alternative reading of Chaucerian resonances that fill Lydgate’s The Temple of Glass by analyzing the poem’s allusions to the House of Fame. I argue that Lydgate, as a poet who was well read in Chaucer and considered as his most prolific imitator, comprehended the experimentations of his ‘maister’. Taking into account Meyer-Lee’s study on the House of Fame, which explores Chaucer’s efforts to transform the value of the literary field of late medieval English poetry to better suit his then transitional social position, I assert that by borrowing details of setting, time and place from House of Fame, Lydgate implies his use of the framework set up by Chaucer to adopt his alteration of literary value. In doing so, Lydgate emulates Chaucer’s idea of the literary as an autonomous discourse, which would fundamentally allow him to write courtly productions even from his rather peculiar position as a monk. An analysis of the relations between Lydgate’s poetry and his position as a monk sheds light on his imitation in The Temple of Glass of Chaucer’s attempt to create a poetry that projected him as an authentic poet in connection with both the literary field of the court and his socioeconomic position.
