The Tale of Echo (CA, V, 4583-4652)

Author/Editor
Zipf, Karl A., Jr

Title
The Tale of Echo (CA, V, 4583-4652)

Published
Zipf, Karl A., Jr. "The Tale of Echo (CA, V, 4583-4652)." 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. 59-61. ISBN 081925962

Review
Zipf summarizes Ovid's brief account of Echo ("Metamorphoses" 3.359-69) and identifies ways that Gower alters Ovid's version in his own account in CA 5.4583-4652. Gower expands the account and renders it moralistic by developing the character of Echo, focusing on her "crime and punishment" as an "active procurer" of lovers for Jupiter, and by the setting more familiar for his contemporary courtly audience. [MA]

Date
1982

Gower Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Confessio Amantis