Chaucer’s “Ebrayk Josephus” and The House of Fame

Abstract:The place of the Judeo-Roman historian Josephus in Chaucer’s House of Fame has been underexplored in existing scholarship. Situating Josephus in terms of his complex and sometimes contested reception in the Middle Ages, this essay unites approaches from classical reception and critical race studies to investigate in depth the significance of Josephus’s appearance in the poem. Analysis is focused in particular on the column passage in The House of Fame and on the evocative nouns and adjectives that surround Josephus in the poem: “secte saturnyn,” “Ebrayk,” “Jewes,” “Jewerye.” Far from a stable figure of authority, Josephus is shown to be open to conflicting interpretations depending on the extent to which he is understood as a Christian or a Jew. Thus Josephus exemplifies how classical reception for Chaucer is enmeshed in the intersecting discourses of race and authority. As a case study, “Ebrayk Josephus” also suggests how the frameworks of classical reception and critical race studies, brought into dialogue, may shed new light on familiar literary texts.