The Tale of Phebus and Daphne (CA, III, 1685-1720)

Author/Editor
Ruyak, Natalie Epinger

Title
The Tale of Phebus and Daphne (CA, III, 1685-1720)

Published
Ruyak, Natalie Epinger. "The Tale of Phebus and Daphne (CA, III, 1685-1720)." In John Gower's Literary Transformations in the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations. Ed. Beidler, Peter G. Washington, D. C.: University Press of America, 1982, pp. 25-27. ISBN 081925962

Review
Ruyak summarizes Ovid's account of Phebus Apollo and Daphne ("Metamorphoses" 1.452-567) and identifies ways that Gower alters Ovid's version in his own account in CA 3.2145-2307. Gower reduces plot, imagery, and sympathy for Daphne (even as he demotes her from nymph to human being) in order to emphasize the moral concern with "passion and foolhaste." [MA]

Date
1982

Gower Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Confessio Amantis