1 100 2176 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Unexamnined. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Oyama, Toshiko. Published Oyama, Toshiko. A Comparative Study of Chaucer and Gower. M.A. Thesis. The Ohio State University, 1951 Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Comparative Study of Chaucer and Gower. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1951 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Discusses possible influence by Gower on "Cymbeline," "Winter's Tale," "Tempest," and, of course, "Pericles." [RFY1971] Author/Editor Author/Editor Smith, Hallett. Published Smith, Hallett. Shakespeare's Romances: A Study of Some Ways of the Imagination. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1972, pp. 3, 18, 40. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shakespeare's Romances: A Study of Some Ways of the Imagination. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Argues for restoring pre-eminence to the first recension of CA, as opposed to the "third recension" version that Macaulay chose as representing Gower's "final judgment," and also for restoring to Richard II major credit for the poem's inception. There is no reason for Gower to have invented the famous story of its commissioning, she points out. Citing the similarities in the depiction of the deities of love, with their allusions to Richard II and Queen Anne, and the references to the rivalry between the Flower and the Leaf in CA, the Legend of Good Women, and Clanvowe's Book of Cupid, she suggests that all three poets "may have been commissioned, or encouraged, to produce a complimentary poem incorporating these motifs (though, as with Chaucer and Gower, the critiques of Love's willful rule may have been more the poet's idea)" (112). She attributes the resistance to the acceptance of Richard's active role to a privileging of the later Lancastrian version of his text, to a "fascination with Gower's role as a Lancastrian ally" (105), and to a preference for the passages in the poem that offer "an attack on the king's excesses" (115) rather than for those that pay homage to him. But Gower's use of the cult of the Flower and the Leaf in order to "suggest the immaturity of life at Richard's court" suggests that "allegorizing the royals does not necessarily turn them into spun-sugar valentines" (116) and that the poets' acceptance of their commission need not be held against them. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 27.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Coleman, Joyce Published Coleman, Joyce. "'A Bok for King Richardes Sake': Royal Patronage, the Confessio, and the Legend of Good Women." In On John Gower: Essays at the Millennium. Ed. Yeager, R.F. Studies in Medieval Culture (46). Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2007, pp. 104-21. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'A Bok for King Richardes Sake': Royal Patronage, the Confessio, and the Legend of Good Women Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Medieval Institute, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Kiefer, Lauren Published Kiefer, Lauren. "'A Good War Spoiled,' Part Two: Troy in the Late Middle Ages." In The Spoils of War: The Bright and Bitter Fruits of Human Conflict. Ed. Kleist, Jurgen and Butterfield, Bruce A.. Plattsburgh Studies in the Humanities (5). New York: Peter Lang, 1997, pp. 13-39. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review Kiefer's is the second of two essays on the depiction of the Trojan War in this new volume. (The first, by Thomas J. Morrisey, covers Greek literature from Homer to Euripides.) She offers some brief comments on the standard Roman and medieval texts -- Ovid, Vergil, Hyginus, Bersuire, Benoit, and Guido -- emphasizing the portrayal of Ulysses as a smooth-talking trickster; but as will come as no surprise to those familiar with her other scholarly work, she devotes the bulk of her essay to Gower, who presents the war, she asserts, "as a pervasive, societal evil, rather than as an occasion for individual credulity and guile" (p. 19). Gower saw the war, she argues, as a mirror of his own violent times, and in his tales of Troy he demonstrates "how humans' own violent nature creates the destruction around them, and how, conversely, the institution of war distorts human impulses into duplicity and cruelty" (p. 25). She supports her conclusions with an examination of three tales. In "The Trojan Horse," Gower places blame on the falsity of the Greeks, but also shows that "the Trojan's own violent impulses [the eagerness and intensity with which they tear down their own walls] result in the destruction of the city" (p. 26). In "Nauplus and Ulysses," Gower demonstrates the incompatibility between war and familial love, and depicts the revelation of Ulysses' feigned madness as a cruel act of retribution, as Nauplus fights one ruse with another in order to separate Ulysses from his family. In substituting Nauplus for Palamedes, moreover, Gower draws a link (despite the difference in the spelling of the name) to his own earlier tale of "King Namplus and the Greeks": though he doesn't specify who actually killed Palamedes, Gower relies upon knowledge of the story to suggest that Ulysses killed Namplus' son because Nauplus threatened Ulysses' son, thus completing "the cycle of parental love warped into hatred and violence" (p. 32). Gower emphasizes the link between the Troy story and his own times by setting "Nauplus and Ulysses" within Genius' and Amans' discussion of the crusades. Amans speaks for Gower in this dialogue, echoing the narrator of the Prologue, as he undercuts Genius' enthusiasm for winning glory in battle and condemns the mentality that underlies the crusades. Genius replies with a tale that seems to exalt war over love and over the personal bonds between husband and wife and between father and son. Gower sets the personal against the mob mentality that results in war, Kiefer concludes, and "shows us that by the late fourteenth century, the age of chivalry was already approaching its end, and the rise of the individual was already beginning" (p. 37). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 16.2] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'A Good War Spoiled,' Part Two: Troy in the Late Middle Ages Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Peter Lang, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-04. Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Attempts to rescue Gower from a century's worth of comparison of his prosody to Chaucer's by distinguishing two different modes of versification, each with different goals. Gower's, he claims, is a "bookish" prosody, a "rhetoric of writing," meant for reading silently, quickly, and for long periods of time (as confirmed by Gower's own statements at the beginning of the Prologue), "a prosody cunningly adapted for the rapid but pleasant reading of many stories" (p. 260). The "unit of sense" of such a prosody is the verse paragraph, not the individual line; there is little opportunity, therefore, for attention to particular words or particular poetic effects. At the same time, Gower has no reason to adopt the "fictions of voice and the rhythms of speech" that are characteristic of Chaucer and Langland. The examples that Gaylord cites (which he prints free of Macaulay's editorial punctuation) demonstrate how different from speech Gower's prosody is, yet how it produces a forward moving narrative slowed only by deft rhetorical patterning at significant moments. As a more complete demonstration of how their prosody suits their different purposes, he gives a detailed comparison of Gower's tale of Florent to Chaucer's WBT: the first "is handled as a narrative with almost no conversation and no debate, moving unerringly to the demonstration that virtuous gentilesse will bring good fortune in life and love," and the second "is handled as an exemplum whose end has already been telegraphed in the Prologue, and whose every ethical point along the way is problematized, made the occasion for personal digression and argumentative emphasis" (p. 267). He concludes with a briefer discussion of "Apollonius of Tyre," again emphasizing the suitability of the prosody to the type of exemplary narrative that Gower constructs. Gaylord's analysis is based all but exclusively on Gower's tales; what is missing is any distinction between Gower's narrative style and the prosody of the dialogue between Amans and Genius in the frame, portions of which possess some of the qualities that Gaylord denies to CA altogether. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Gaylord, Alan T. Published Gaylord, Alan T.. "'After the Forme of my Writynge': Gower's Bookish Prosody." Mediaevalia 16 (1993), pp. 257-288. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'After the Forme of my Writynge': Gower's Bookish Prosody Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Both Chaucer and Gower depict both Dido (in HF 373, LGW 1349-52, and CA 4.132-34) and Pyramus and Thisbe (in LGW 850, 915 and CA 3.1444, 1490) as taking their own lives by stabbing themselves in the heart, a detail not found in any of their known sources. The priority of HF suggests that Chaucer set the example here, but Sobecki is not primarily interested in who came first. He instead focuses on the significance of the heart, not as the most efficient target of a suicide, as we might presume, but as the seat of the passion that motivates its victims: "Eneas's blade, it seems, is directed by Dido into her emotive centre in a frantic attempt to extinguish her suffering" (112). And he links the force that compels their death to common medieval descriptions of love-sickness, suggesting that the poets attempted to place the characters' deaths within the narrow grounds that under medieval theology and law might provide exoneration for suicide. Thus for both poets "Dido is not only a victim of Eneas's sloth; she is also a casualty of lovesickness, a "Minneopjer," which circumstance, at least in its pathological right, could exculpate her from mortal sin" (112). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 28.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Sobecki, Sebastian Published Sobecki, Sebastian. "'And to the herte she hireselven smot': The Loveris Maladye and the Legitimate Suicides of Chaucer's and Gower's Exemplary Lovers." Mediaevalia 25 (2004), pp. 107-121. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'And to the herte she hireselven smot': The Loveris Maladye and the Legitimate Suicides of Chaucer's and Gower's Exemplary Lovers Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Discusses Gower's relation to Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, and their successors Machaut and Froissart. All these poets, she writes, "are preoccupied by a desire to investigate the relationship between writing and the self, the kind of access a writer has to truth, and how the art of fiction both enables and inhibits this access. In all these writers, the figure of the lover acts as one of the main ways for them to represent the art of writing: the lover generates the poetry, and indeed is often represented as a poet" (165). So too Gower creates a "precarious distinction" (180) between poet and lover before collapsing the two roles at the poem's end, and he also includes Genius as a way of doubling his presence: "Genius is the interlocutor of the author and at the same time an internalized projection of him" (177). The confession frame is also enlisted in the exploration of the topic of identity. "Working within the central tradition of French writers," Butterfield concludes, love "becomes for him, as for them, a way of examining the art of fiction, and hence the multiple art of confessing the self" (180). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Butterfield, Ardis Published Butterfield, Ardis. "'Confessio Amantis' and the French Tradition." In A Companion to Gower. Ed. Echard, Siân. Cambridge: Brewer, 2004, pp. 165-80. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Confessio Amantis' and the French Tradition Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Unlike Gower's other poems, the moralizing in CA is presented not as a direct address to the reader but dramatically, in the dialogue between Genius and Amans. This fictional dialogue is as important to the moral and imaginative dimensions of the poem as the pilgrimage that serves as the setting for CT. Amans' presence allowed Gower to shift the emphasis from purely abstract moralizing to the difficulties of an individual sinner's real experience. The poem thus presents a genuine exploration of the relationship between general moral truth and the realities of human endeavor. An examination of Book 1 provides a demonstration of Gower's method, in particular of Amans' importance as the object of Genius' lessons. As the first book of the poem it also provides a summary of the essential points in Gower's complex and sympathetic doctrine of human love.[PN. Copyright The John Gower Society: JGN 6.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Nicholson, Peter Published Nicholson, Peter. "'Confession' in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Studia Neophilologica 58 (1986), pp. 193-204. ISSN 0039-3274 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Confession' in Gower's Confessio Amantis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Routledge, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Bradley analyzes the influence of Gower's line "hebenus, that slepy tree" (CA 4.3017), itself borrowed from Ovid's Metamorphoses, on Marlowe and Shakespeare. In the Jew of Malta, Marlowe refers to the "juice of Hebon" as a deadly poison, likely because he remembered Gower's line out of context, and thought that the ebony tree had a narcotic juice. Shakespeare's "juice of Hebona" (in Hamlet) is influenced by a memory of Marlowe's line, although it appears that Shakespeare thought that "hebon" was the same as "henbane," considered a serious poison in the sixteenth century. [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bradley, Henry Published Bradley, Henry. "'Cursed Hebenon' (or 'Hebona')." Modern Language Review 15.1 (1920), pp. 85-87. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Cursed Hebenon' (or 'Hebona') Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Burnley takes up the question whether the medieval phrase "fine amor" is a proper substitute for "courtly love," given the controversial reception of the latter term after Gaston Paris popularized it in 1883. Burnley samples a wide range of medieval uses of "fine amor." References to Gower occur on pages 133, 135, 141, and 144-47. Burnley argues that in the MO Gower generally refers to "fine amor" in relation to Christian charity and fellow feeling. In Gower's Balades, on the other hand, the term "seems to refer to sexual love" (144). However, in keeping with the common medieval view that "fine amor" is love that is pure, refined, and loyal, the love of the Balades remains a "virtuous secular love" (145). The Middle English equivalent for Gower would be "honeste love" (147). [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Burnley, J. D Published Burnley, J. D. "'Fine Amor': Its Meaning and Context." Review of English Studies 31.2 (1980), pp. 129-148. ISSN 0034-6551 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Cinkante Balades Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Fine Amor': Its Meaning and Context Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Pickford argues that Gower accommodates the concept of fortune to Christian teaching. Bad fortune is the result of mankind's sin. It is a general effect of the fall, rather than the result of one individual's choices. Fortune, then, "is a figurative way of expressing the observable fact that this world is a mutable world, whose outcome God foreknows and in a sense 'directs' since he has taken account of it in his overall plan for man" (24). People do have free will (as Gower shows by deciding to go boating on the Thames when he met King Richard II "par chaunce"), and the answer to the sin and division that create misfortune is love (caritas). Even Venus, a goddess very similar to Fortune, becomes a more Christian figure in Gower's work (24). Pickford ends his essay by illustrating his general argument with examples culled primarily from the CA Prologue and from the Tale of Apollonius of Tyre. Finally, he dismisses the idea that Gower's frequent use of the proverb "nede mot that nede schal" has much to do with Gower's concept of fortune. [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Pickford, T. E Published Pickford, T. E. "'Fortune' in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Parergon 7 (1973), pp. 20-29. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Fortune' in Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Stegner asserts that in the "Confessio" "Gower represents a recuperative form of forgetting in order to signal the difficulty of reconciling auricular confession with narratives of desire" (489). Unlike the many who see Amans as more bewildered than sinful, and his confession as a deliberate amorous trope, Stegner treats Gower's Lover as a Christian sinner in need of penitential healing, and thus seeks to "reveal the deep pressure between the penitent's memory of past transgressions and his reformation through confession" (489). This allows Stegner ultimately to project the methodology of Amans' restitution as a blueprint for social recuperation: "Gower's concentration on the social . . . extends his understanding of memory to include productively forgetting the limitations of human agency. In holding on to and letting go of his memories, Gower indicates how remembering an English society bound together in unity first depends on forgetting the divisions that fracture the kingdom. This focus on forgetting present conflicts and remembering a unified past takes on a particular significance in the tumultuous political climate in which the 'Confessio' was composed and revised. In this sense, Gower uses memory and forgetting as one possible strategy for reconciling England's Ricardian past with its Lancastrian present and future" (507). The bulk of the essay, however, is very little about healing a fractured society; rather, Stegner focusses on the "Tale of Apollonius" in Book VIII and its presentation of incest, arguing Genius chooses the tale in order that Amans recognize himself (and his own "incest," which Stegner is hardly alone in stretching to define as "a synecdoche for amatory desire" [497] generally) in Apollonius, the better to turn the Lover toward reason, and away from "kinde." "Kinde" Stegner reads very darkly, as "bestial," in the pejorative sense, rather than "natural," as animals are, and so sinless in their irrationality. This move is essential for Stegner to complete his turn, which he does in a single, breath-taking leap: "Genius condemns the undercurrents of amatory desire by following the common medieval comparison of incest to the sexual behavior of animals" (498). Only when Amans can "forget" he ever experienced love's pull (while, like Apollonius, remembering the trial-beset journey to enlightenment), can he become a "John Gower" who "gestures toward [an] Augustinian conception of the individual mind's ascent through sensory perception to memory itself and finally beyond it to a form of mystical contemplation of God" (506-07). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 31.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Stegner, Paul D Published Stegner, Paul D. "'Foryet it thou, and so wol I': Absolving Memory in 'Confessio Amantis'." Studies in Philology 108 (2011), pp. 488-507. ISSN 0039-3738 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Foryet it thou, and so wol I': Absolving Memory in 'Confessio Amantis' Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Keohane examines Gower's maritime vocabulary in the CA. His scope thus does not include "To King Henry IV In Praise of Peace" nor any of the French or Latin poems--though he suggests further attention to the MO would likely be fruitful, and hints at a subsequent, expanded study forthcoming. He notes: "A survey of phrases and terms that refer to nautical technology in Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' reveals familiarity with a primarily Anglo-French, large-ship tradition while hinting at a possible direct experiential connection with elements of Iberian or Mediterranean trade networks" (103). He classifies four contexts for Gower's nautical imagery: "in the setting of the Ricardian Prologue; when retelling maritime scenes drawn from earlier sources; as imagery of love; and in incidental observations" (105). He also compares Gower's use of specific nautical terms to Chaucer's, concluding that the latter's is generalized and unspecific, except in cases (e.g., the "Man of Law's Tale") where Chaucer clearly borrowed from Gower (118-21), thus lending support to the claim that Gower's version was Chaucer's first source. "Gower's use of nautical terms . . . often shows a level of technical awareness surprising in a landsman . . . . All of Gower's type-specific vocabulary refer only to technologies that would have been used on large sailing ships of the time" (111). By contrast, "Chaucer only superficially employs any maritime vocabulary" (119). Detailed discussion of the terms "luff," as a verb (114-15), "reef," as a verb (117-18), and in particular the term "topseilcole"--a form derived from "topsail" at a time when "as far as we know, English ships--indeed all the ships of the Northern European tradition--[had no] topsails in their rig until almost fifty years after Gower's death" (113). "The image of John Gower that emerges . . . is one of a man thoroughly familiar with a primarily Anglo-French, large-ship tradition" (112) but also, and more provocatively, Keohane argues for Gower's direct, first-hand knowledge of Iberian and Mediterranean shipping, an idea that draws strength from the Iberian translations of the CA. Gower's knowledge of ships extends beyond mere close observation of vessels in the Thames from his wharf in Southwark, or a keen ear for multi-national sailors' speech in the City. "To use ['reef'] properly," as Gower does, "the poet would require at least some additional understanding of the mechanics of sailing and related nautical practice" (117-18). Similarly, "the practice of luffing can really only be observed from the deck of a ship" and likewise "the appreciation of a topseilcole . . . is something that is noticed when a ship is underway. It is a memory retained by a sailor and not a landsman. These are the words and thoughts of a participant in maritime life, not those of an outsider" (118). Keohane speculates that many of Gower's targeted audience(s) may have been among the rising merchant class, individuals who, like Gower, would have known shipping through trade (121-22), and concludes by noting "the John Gower revealed in the maritime vocabulary of the Confessio Amantis is thus a man who was conversant with the language and technology of Anglo-French as well as Mediterranean ships and shipping. He was likely connected by both political and economic networks to the Iberian Peninsula, probably though his Lancastrian sympathies but possibly through the wool trade" (123). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 34.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Keohane, Colin J Published Keohane, Colin J. "'He fond the schip of gret array': Implications of John Gower's Maritime Vocabulary." SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 18 (2011), pp. 103-27. ISSN 1132-631X Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'He fond the schip of gret array': Implications of John Gower's Maritime Vocabulary. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Gwin assembles the evidence that Gower knew and made use of De Consolatione Philosophiae, and then traces its influence on the themes and structure of CA. Boethius provides the model for the dialogue between Amans and his confessor, and Amans' rejection of courtly love for "the soul's union with the mind of God" is a version of the Neoplatonic journey in DCP. Directed by Thomas L. Wright. [JGN 8.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Gwin, Mary Metz Published Gwin, Mary Metz. "'Homward a softe pas': The Boethian model in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'." PhD thesis, Auburn, 1987. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Homward a softe pas': The Boethian model in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Rayner opens her study with an unusually apt précis: "The 'Confessio Amantis' connects directly and frankly through the persona of Amans with the tensions age brings to lust and love. Venus may tell Amans that 'Loves lust and lockes hore/ In chamber acorden neveremore,' but the 'Confessio' shows us Gower understood the complexities of impulse and behaviour that age and love created. In this essay I shall concentrate on how these complexities are brought out through the exchange between Amans and Genius, as well as Amans and Venus, showing how the 'Confessio' exploits conventions of courtly and classical literature to examine an essentially human experience with humour, wit and perspicacity" (69). Rayner's embrace of disparate issues is broad, and her progress toward a conclusion ranges widely. At the center of her concerns, however, is the single idea that readers should take Amans' erotic passion entirely seriously and at face value--as something that happens in nature, perhaps did to Gower himself. Ultimately she rejects readers (Watt, Nicholson, Wetherbee) who "have seen the end of the 'Confessio' as full of a sense of defeat." (82) Instead, Rayner finds in the poem's finish "an acceptance of a new view of life, of new priorities and new explorations, not a portrait of a man defeated, or even of a man saying that love has been an illusion. Unlike many of the sources, Amans is not part of an elaborate dream sequence: the fact that he is revealed to be Gower emphasizes the attempt to make his experiences more real, more relevant to the audience receiving them. Amans becomes Gower so that the poem becomes a very potent and ultimately optimistic experience. Age will come to all, just as love will, but there are positives. There is no delusion: love happens to old people--to all people" (82-83). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 33.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Rayner, Samantha J Published Rayner, Samantha J. "'How love and I togedre met': Gower, Amans and the Lessons of Venus in the 'Confessio Amantis'." In Sexual Culture in the Literature of Medieval Britain. Ed. Hopkins, Amanda, and Rouse, Robert Allen, and Rushton, Cory. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014, pp. 69-83. ISBN 9781843843795 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'How love and I togedre met': Gower, Amans and the Lessons of Venus in the 'Confessio Amantis'. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available D. S. Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "The rightness of relations is a major theme in late medieval literature. The criteria for rightness include the identity of wills, the doctrine of submission, and the imitatio Dei. The identity of wills refers to the sharing of goals and desires shared by two persons in a hierarchical relationship (king and subject, master and servant, husband and wife, et cetera). The doctrine of submission establishes obedience as a prerequisite for authority. The imitatio Dei urges likeness to Christ as the foundation for rightness. These three criteria emerged from the junctures of feudal, commercial, and Christian ideologies." Gower is one of the authors Charnley considers to illustrate the appearance of these themes, along with Chaucer, Julian of Norwich, the Pearl-poet, DeGuileville, and Langland." [JGN 16.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Charnley, Susan Christina De Long Published Charnley, Susan Christina De Long. "'I wol nat serve . . .': Authority and Submission in late medieval English literature." Ph.D. dissertation. Michigan State University, 1996. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'I wol nat serve . . .': Authority and Submission in late medieval English literature Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Irvin, Matthew William Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Published Irvin, Matthew William. "'In propria persona': Artifice, politics, and propriety in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." PhD thesis, Duke University, 2009. Dissertation Abstracts International A70.12. Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global and at https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/items/13035f6e-6306-4cc2-85fa-6a63abab12f8. Review "This dissertation examines the use of personae, the rhetorical artifices by which an author creates different voices, in John Gower's "Confessio Amantis." I argue that the "Confessio" attempts to expose how discourses of sexual desire alienate subjects from their proper place in the political world, and produce artificial personae that only appear socially engaged. The first three chapters consider the creation of the personae in the context of medieval Aristotelian political thought and the "Roman de la Rose" tradition. The last three chapters examine the extended discourse of Gower's primary personae in the "Confessio Amantis," drawing upon Gower's other works and the history of Gower criticism. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource 'In propria persona': Artifice, politics, and propriety in John Gower's Confessio Amantis. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Surveys what can be inferred from Gower's scant life records (mostly on property dealings) and the references in Gower's own poetry; then gives greatest attention to the geography of Southwark during Gower's time (providing some helpful maps), to the layout of the priory church of St. Mary Overie, and to the construction of Gower's tomb, as it appears today and as it was described by 16th century observers. The tomb, they note, "represents a range of facets of a contemporary perception of Gower; several, perhaps all of them, his own model of how he saw himself, or wished to be portrayed" (40). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hines, John Cohen, Nathalie Roffey, Simon Published Hines, John and Cohen, Nathalie and Roffey, Simon. "'Iohannes Gower, Armiger, Poeta': Records and Memorials of His Life and Death." In A Companion to Gower. Ed. Echard, Siân. Cambridge: Brewer, 2004, pp. 23-41. Gower Subject Biography of Gower Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Iohannes Gower, Armiger, Poeta': Records and Memorials of His Life and Death Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Speculates that Gower's word came from Old French "Araigne" (Lat. "Aranea"), and that the source of the story in which the word appears is probably Ambrose or Brunetto Latini. [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Toynbee, Paget. Published Toynbee, Paget. "'L'Areine au Mer' in Gower's Mirour de l'Omme." Athenaeum, No. 3838 (May, 1901): 632-33. Gower Subject Sourcs, Analogues, and Literary Relations Language and Word Studies Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'L'Areine au Mer' in Gower's Mirour de l'Omme. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1901 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Expanded abstract supplied by the author: "Exemplary literature perpetuates the absolutist notion that a past event, the narration and reception of that event, and the reader;s social behavior exist in absolute causal alignment. But Middle English texts in the exemplary mode, from conduct-books to ambitious poetry, rarely carry out their own claims of integrity. This study explores how several writers--including Gower, Chaucer, Caxton, and Henryson--anticipate a wide range of new secular audiences, attempting to both constrain interpretation and open readers to the transformative powers of literature. Drawing on recent theories of translation, imitation, and intertextuality, the study investigates how textual imitation both enables and complicates exemplary imitation: how, that is, the relations between 'olde bokes' and new suggests relations between new books and new readers. Chapter 2 and 3 argue that, in the last two books of the CA, Gower increasingly advocates the fictive register as educational method. Chapter 2, "Recognition and Reflection: Reading Women in Two exemplary Compilations," paries his "Apollonius of Tyre" with Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry in order to examine the connections between moral injunction and imaginative fiction. Unlike the violent injunctive discourse of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry, "Apollonius of Tyre" represents moral choice as an interpretative process demanding readerly acts of discrimination, exemplified by Thaise's reinterpretation of her silent father. Genius's moralizing and Amans's resistance to the tale encourage us to read the tale better than they do. In concluding the CA with "Apollonius of Tyre," Gower makes his broadest demands upon his readers and his most ambitious claim for the educational value of imaginative fiction. Chapter 3, "From Endorsement to Disavowal: The Politics of Exemplarity in the Tale of Virginia," examines Gower's version of the tale of Virginia (at the end of Book 7) along with Livy's and Chaucer's versions. In Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Virginia's father saves her virginity by stabbing her in the public forum, and the act constitutes a successful call to revolutionary action. Gower renders the father tyrannical and suppresses the efficacy of the revolution. Livy's apparent endorsement of Virginia's death emerges in Gower as a rigid form of historical truth-telling in which the exemplum must be destroyed in order to remain exemplary. Gower translates Livy's exemplary efficacy into an argument for the political importance of metaphor--and of fiction itself. Chapter 1, '"Grisilde is deed": Reflecting Audience in Late Medieval England,' lays out the study's methods. Chapter 4, 'Alienation and Lectio Facilior: The Pardoner and His Audiences,' examines Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale' through the lends of its reception in fifteenth-century manuscripts and in the Tale of Beryn; and Chapter 5, 'Chaucer's Criseyde in Henryson's "poleist glas,"' examines the Testament of Cresseid as an exemplary response to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." Directed by Karla Taylor. [JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Allen, Elizabeth Gage Published Allen, Elizabeth Gage. "'Lat the chaf be stille': Exemplary Fictions is Late Medieval England." PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1997. Open access at http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:9732034 (accessed January 23, 2023). Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Lat the chaf be stille': Exemplary Fictions is Late Medieval England. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In 1931, Ethel Seaton attempted to demonstrate that Gower was the most likely author of the French dream vision "Le Songe Vert." Someone (I have lost the reference) later characterized Seaton's piece as an exercise in "misplaced ingenuity," and Yeager would no doubt agree. He sets aside most of the points of resemblance that Seaton cites as unpersuasive, and he points out differences from Gower's work that she doesn't take into account. The main thrust of his essay, however, is what can be deduced about the date, authorship, and preservation of the poem from the two manuscripts in which it is found. The earlier and more ornate, London, British Library MS Additional 34114, bears the arms (and mitre) of Henry Le Despenser, Bishop of Norwich from 1370 to 1406. "Le Songe Vert" appears there somewhat anomalously alongside three long verse narratives about heroes from the past, and Yeager speculates that the interest that binds the four works together lies in the models of behavior that they provide--in two very different realms--for the chivalric class. Bibliothèque de la ville de Clermont MS 249 dates from the mid-fifteenth century and originated, Yeager argues, not far from where it is presently found, and it bears traces of the dialect of the south of France. It would be difficult to explain how a work of Gower's found its way so far, and "it seems wiser," Yeager concludes, "to speculate that Bishop Despenser, whose travels to France and the Low Countries are firmly attested, brought it home with him . . . than that the poem is one of Gower's that travelled the other way" (87). Yeager doesn't cite James Wimsatt's discussion of "Le Songe Vert" in "Chaucer and the French Love Poets" (Chapel Hill, 1968), 137-43, in which Wimsatt suggests that the French poem was modeled on Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess," and that it served in turn as a source for Oton de Granson's "Complainte de Saint Valentin," which resembles it closely in narrative setting. If the latter is correct, it would help make the dating of "Le Songe Vert" a bit more precise since Granson died in 1397. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 33.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "'Le Songe Vert,' BL Add. MS 34114 (the Spalding Manuscript), Bibliothèque de la ville de Clermont, MS 249 and John Gower." In Middle English Texts in Transition: A Festschrift Dedicated to Toshiyuki Takamiya on his 70th Birthday. Ed. Horobin, Simon, and Mooney, Linne R. Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press/Boydell & Brewer, 2004, pp. 75-87. ISBN 9781903153536 Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Le Songe Vert,' BL Add. MS 34114 (the Spalding Manuscript), Bibliothèque de la ville de Clermont, MS 249 and John Gower. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available York Medieval Press/Boydell & Brewer. Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Points out that, for Gower in the Confessio Amantis, "to every thing there is a season": Amans' problem is not that he is old--for old age was not a stigma in the Middle Ages--but rather that he fails to act as his age requires. When he at last conforms to behavior proper to his senescence, the poem resolves itslef. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Mangan, Robert Published Mangan, Robert. "'Loves luste and lockes hore': Medieval Attitudes Towards Aging and Sexuality." Human Values and Aging Newsletter. 4 (1981), pp. 5-6. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Loves luste and lockes hore': Medieval Attitudes Towards Aging and Sexuality. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor McDonald, Nicola F. Published McDonald, Nicola F.. "'Lusti Tresor': Avarice and the Economics of the Erotic in Gower's Confessio Amantis." In Treasure in the Medieval West. Ed. Tyler, E.M.. York: York Medieval Press, 2000, pp. 135-156. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review McDonald explores the "discursive interplay between sex and commerce" (136) in medieval portrayals of Avarice, both verbal and visual, focusing on examples from Gower. She begins with an early sixteenth-century drawing found at the beginning of Book 5 in a Pierpont Morgan Library copy of Caxton's 1483 edition of CA. It shows a woman with an outstretched arm holding what appears to be a full set of male genitalia, interposing herself between a man and another woman who reach towards one another. This is a figure of Avarice holding her "purse," McDonald claims, citing other examples, both sculpted and painted, in which the sin is identified by the same or similar attributes; and the drawing illustrates the opening lines of the initial epigram of Book 5: "Obstat avaricia nature legibus, et que / Largus amor poscit, striccius illa vetat" (5 vv. 1-2). The image derives from a broader tradition, for which McDonald also provides examples, in which Lust and Avarice are juxtaposed as similar and equally sinful forms of desire and are given a similar iconography. Gower too juxtaposes commerce and sexual desire in his poem, in Venus' dismissal of Amans, for instance, at the end of Book 8, where she asks, "What bargain scholde a man assaie, / What that him lacketh forto paie?" (8.2431-32), but more importantly in Book 5, Amans' confession on Avarice. Sex and money are treated as virtually interchangeable in this book, not only in Genius' discourse and tales but also in Amans' confessions, as a woman's love or the woman herself is treated as a treasure or an object of value that one might give or gain. Genius' efforts to construct a morality of love, however, lead to failure, because Largitas, the virtue that is opposed to Avarice, would lead, if Genius pursued the logic of his own argument, to a type of behavior incompatible with Christian morality were it applied to conduct in love. "In Christian terms, terms which Genius invokes in support of his code of moral conduct, only monogamy and virginity constitute virtuous sexual conduct. In terms of the 'economy of love,' both states . . . , by insisting that love's treasure be either hoarded or spent sparingly, are necessarily avaricious. What is for the Christian a virtue is for Venus's disciples a vice. And what for Venus's disciples constitutes virtue, the free and generous expenditure of the lady's treasures, is for the Christian a damnable vice" (154). These contradictions and paradoxes, McDonald argues, are left unreconciled. The reviewer has recently examined the same juxtapositions of imagery in Book 5 (and wishes that he had known of McDonald's fine essay beforehand), but reached a very different conclusion, that Gower plays throughout on both the similarities and differences between love and gold, as evidenced in passages that McDonald chooses not to cite, including the lines with which the initial epigram of the book concludes: "Non debet vt soli seruabitur es, set amori / Debet homo solam solus habere suam" (5 vv. 5-6). [PN Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.22] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Lusti Tresor': Avarice and the Economics of the Erotic in Gower's Confessio Amantis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available York Medieval Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Fox "seeks to elucidate Gower's reception not only of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (as Latinized by Grosseteste and adapted by Trevisa) but also of the moralizations on Ovidian texts, and to analyze how these traditions influence the goals of the Confessio." For Fox, "Genius employs the 'Tale of Medusa' to mirror the paralysis, impaired will, and confused desires of Amans, and uses it to argue for an ethical agenda that is practical, rather than theoretical in nature." She finds the tale "sourced in the moralizing commentaries on the Metamorphoses and the exempla of thirteenth-century sermons;" in Gower's hands, however, the tale becomes "an Aristotelian practical ethic to emphasize the importance of productive, directed action and the role of individual agency in that action." [RFY. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fox, Hilary E Published Fox, Hilary E. "'Min herte is growen into ston': Ethics and Activity in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Comitatus 36 (2005), pp. 15-40. ISSN 0069-6412 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Min herte is growen into ston': Ethics and Activity in John Gower's Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In the preface to his Mirrour of Good Maners (his otherwise forgettable translation of Dominique Mancini's De Quattuor Virtutibus), Alexander Barclay explained his refusal to submit to his patron's wish that he instead translate Gower's Confessio Amantis by dismissing the poem, rather surprisingly, for its "wantonnes." Barrington takes another look at this passage, and she argues that Barclay was not so much concerned that the poem was either immoral or lascivious. He used "wanton" in a different sense, "undisciplined, ungoverned; not amenable to control, unmanageable, rebellious" (OED), referring more specifically to three characteristics of CA that Barclay catalogs in the explanation in the lines that follow: the inappropriateness of an old man posing as a young lover, of a priest speaking of anything but faith and virtue, and of the poem's attempt to mix "lust" with "lore" or "to express moral truths in tales of lust and desire" (p.19). All three of these Barrington labels as examples of "excessive performance and inappropriate role-playing" (p.196) and of "uncontained and excessive display, both linguistic and theatrical" (p.207), and she finds an analogy and model for Barclay's response to the poem in the reactions of Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More to the excesses of display and performance in the 1520 convocation of the French and English kings and of their highest nobility known as the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," contrived by Cardinal Wolsey both to enact and to celebrate the peace between England and France, an event for which Barclay himself was enlisted in a minor role. Barclay's reaction to the convocation is not recorded, but much implicit criticism of the court is contained in his Eclogues. Barclay's reading of Gower, Barrrington suggests, points to "an equally skeptical reading of Henry VIII's court, with its increasing emphasis on transgressive pomp, ceremony, and role-playing" (p.207), and using Fisher's and More's views as an index of Barclay's, Barrington concludes that Barclay "sees in Gower's courtly satire the dangers inherent in the closed culture where all scripts are written by and performed for the monarch" (p.220). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 27.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Barrington, Candace Published Barrington, Candace. "'Misframed Fables': Barclay's Gower and the Wantonness of Performance." Mediaevalia 24 (2003), pp. 195-225. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Misframed Fables': Barclay's Gower and the Wantonness of Performance Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review This investigation into Gower's uses of the Secretum Secretorum in Book 7 of the Confessio Amantis focusses on the education of a royal individual, a ruler, with a wise man at his side as seen in the model of Alexander and Aristotle and as seen in Gower and his patron. This Aristotelian "digression" ("Noght in the Registre of Venus," lines 19-20) is seen as more central to Gower's system of thought than is the rest of the Confessio. Other sources are discussed, but the focus is on the first half of Book 7 and on a Latin text of the Secretum. [Douglas J. McMillan. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 2.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Manzalaoui, M.A Published Manzalaoui, M.A. "'Noght in the Registre of Venus': Gower's English Mirror for Princes." In Medieval Studies for J.A.W. Bennett: Aetatis Suae LXX. Ed. Heyworth, P.L. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, pp. 159-183. ISBN 019812628X Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Noght in the Registre of Venus': Gower's English Mirror for Princes. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Clarendon Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Batkie notes that in Book 4 of CA Gower gives "surprising validation of alchemy as the highest possible form of human labour" (157) – particularly surprising, one might add, to readers familiar with Chaucer's depiction in the Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale. Gower credits the theory, she argues, without necessarily endorsing current practices. Alchemical theorists describe "an abstract system of transformation and unification, the end of which is the miraculous creation of a material so pure that its very perfection is contagious" (158). The first step, however, "involves the purification and perfection of the adept himself, achieved primarily through his own labour over the art and through divine election. . . . The just adept, chosen by God for his wisdom and purity, will complete the work and be rewarded with material proof that can be multiplied again and again. His inner virtue becomes embodied in the Stone, which, in turn, reproduces the same virtue in everything it touches" (159). This "logic of contagious goodness" is illustrated in the tale of Adrian and Bardus. Batkie also sees that alchemical process as a model for the reader's experience, as he or she is "transformed" by CA. Gower begins the process by eliminating the impenetrable obscurity of Latin alchemical writing – by a "vernacular transformation" (163). The "transformative reading" that he counts on is illustrated by Diogenes in the tale of Diogenes and Aristippus. Amans, unfortunately, remains more like Aristippus, bound up in the pursuit of his own desire, but the readers of the poem are invited to look beyond Amans to "assume responsibility for their own understanding" (167) and to "activate the transformative power of textual interpretation for themselves" (166). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 30.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Batkie, Stephanie L Published Batkie, Stephanie L. "'Of the parfite medicine': Merita Perpetuata in Gower's Vernacular Alchemy." In Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition. Ed. Dutton, Elisabeth, and Hines, John, and Yeager, R.F. Cambridge: Brewer, 2010, pp. 157-68. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Of the parfite medicine': Merita Perpetuata in Gower's Vernacular Alchemy Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Argues the Confessio's Latin prose marginalia and verse headlinks are consciously used by Gower both to comment on and illuminate the English poetry. This mixture of language has some affinity with the Fasciculus Morum tradition, and may be used to clarify some of Gower's stylistic concerns. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "'our englisshe' and Everyone's Latin: the Fasciculus Morum and Gower's Confessio Amantis." South Atlantic Review 46 (1981), pp. 41-53. ISSN 0277-335X Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'our englisshe' and Everyone's Latin: the Fasciculus Morum and Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review [In grammar, Gower followed insular practices in preference to those of continental French, the Inghams argue. The insular features that they identify are the use of "quell" as a relative pronoun, the use of "qe" or "que" instead of "qui" as a relative pronoun in subject position, and the use of "nul" as a negative marker without an accompanying "ne," all of which are abundantly illustrated in Gower's French verse. While such choices could have been largely unconscious, they note, Gower may also have been aware of how his language differed from that of his French contemporaries, especially in his later works; and citing Yeager (1990) on Gower's attempt to "engage with the continental French poetic mainstream" for the purpose of correcting and reforming it, they suggest that "his linguistic identity as an insular writer came to serve an authorial purpose . . . when he was much less interested in joining his continental contemporaries than beating them." Finally, Gower's use of contemporary insular French, they maintain, demonstrates that Anglo-Norman could serve as a vehicle for serious writing "longer than has sometimes been supposed." [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 34.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Ingham, Richard, Ingham, Michael Published Ingham, Richard, and Ingham, Michael. "'Pardonetz moi qe jeo de ceo forsvoie': Gower's Anglo-Norman Identity." Neophilologus 99 (2015), pp. 667-84. ISSN 0028-2677 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Pardonetz moi qe jeo de ceo forsvoie': Gower's Anglo-Norman Identity. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Adopts a sober view of the morality of CA. Following Fisher and Porter, Cooper sees Gower as preoccupied with disorder, both in society and in the individual. One of the major images that he counterposes to disorder in CA is that of balance, particularly as represented in the two pans of the scale which, when equal, are also stable. Gower expresses this concept not only in his specific allusions to weighing and to scales but also rhetorically, in his use of what Cooper calls "parison," the "balancing" of units of similar length and similar syntactic function. Gower's use of the device in CA is far more frequent than in his French or Latin works, perhaps because of the nature of the language, perhaps because of the possibilities afford by the four-stress line and Gower's use of couplets rather than stanzas. But it is also, she asserts, related to the dominant thematic concerns of the poem, and she goes on to provide literally dozens of examples in which Gower uses the device in thematically significant contexts. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Cooper, Helen Published Cooper, Helen. "'Peised Evene in the Balance': A Thematic and Rhetorical Topos in the Confessio Amantis." Mediaevalia 16 (1993), pp. 113-139. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Peised Evene in the Balance': A Thematic and Rhetorical Topos in the Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Traces the development of Gower's notions of pity and of the king's responsibility for justice through his three major works, beginning with the opposition between the tyrant and the merciful but just ruler in his discussion of Pitė as the daughter of Patience in MO (13897 ff). Even Pity, in that passage, faces the necessity of imposing the death penalty when circumstances warrant. Gower thus uses Pity as a way of creating an idealized portrait of the just and merciful king, and he implies that "only those who are capable of reconciling these competing moral demands can truly qualify as just rulers" (78). Under the force of later events, however, his later comments on pity "become increasingly complex and ambiguous" (72), and he finds it difficult to sustain this moral framework as the test of a good king. Later in MO he offers a warning against too much pity in the king (23029 ff.): pity is reduced to mere "misericordia," or as Gower later names it, "pusillamite" (CA 7). In VC 1, the patience that is allied to pity is depicted as weakness and powerlessness in the face of rebellion; the virtue of strong, swift justice that Gower advocates instead (as illustrated in the summary execution of Wat Tyler) "bears some unsettling resemblance to the figure of the angry tyrant" in the first passage in MO. In VC 6, the pity for his poorest subjects that Gower urges upon Richard II embraces a vehemence against those who take advantage of them and includes a severe punishment of evil counselors. In the tale of "Alexander and the Pirate" (CA 3.2363 ff.), in which the emperor grants a pardon in exchange for military service, Gower alludes to an actual practice: in the broader distribution of pardons near the end of Richard's reign, pity creates an opportunity for an abuse of justice. In the tale of "Orestes" (CA 3. 1885 ff.), on the other hand, Genius's apparent approval of the punishment of Clitemnestra is problematized by the Latin gloss at the beginning of the tale, by the fact that only Orestes is described as "wroth," and by the careful legal proceedings that precede the execution of Egistus. The tale thus "throws doubt on Gower's advocacy in other places of the absolute prerogative of the prince" (96) and "suggests that it may not be enough to limit the king's authority at the personal level of his conscience alone" (97). These last two tales together raise questions about the king's relation to the law that cannot be answered satisfactorily within the terms that Gower first proposes in MO. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 27.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Kobayashi, Yoshiko Published Kobayashi, Yoshiko. "'Principis Umbra': Kingship, Justice, and Pity in John Gower's Poetry." In On John Gower: Essays at the Millennium. Ed. Yeager, R.F. Studies in Medieval Culture (46). Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2007, pp. 71-103. Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Principis Umbra': Kingship, Justice, and Pity in John Gower's Poetry Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Medieval Institute, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Dimmick, Jeremy Published Dimmick, Jeremy. "'Redinge of Romance' in Gower's Confessio Amantis." In Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Romance. Ed. Field, Rosalind. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1999, pp. 125-37. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review The romances in CA, Dimmick writes, "constitute a link between Amans's private preoccupations and Gower's broadest thematic concerns, and provide the poem's most confident affirmations of moral, familiar and social good" (pp. 127-28). Amans reveals his predilection for reading romances in Book 6 (876-89): identifying with the characters about whom he reads, he is led to hope that the outcome of his own pursuit of love will be as happy as theirs. He is almost immediately brought back to the realization of how different his prospects are, however. His disappointment provides an opening for Genius to attempt to modify his view of himself and to release him from his obsession, and one of his means of doing so is to through his use of examples of Amans's own favorite reading-material. The three tales that Dinnick examines as examples of romance in CA are "Florent," "Constance," and "Apollonius of Tyre." He has pertinent and interesting comments on each. "Florent" appears to be a wish-fulfillment fantasy, but the hero obtains what he desires not by an act of his own will, as one might expect in romance, but by giving away his own freedom of choice. At that moment, "he recognises for the first time something which the virtue of trowthe does not require him to perceive: his own good (even his own moral good) is not the sole criterion of value. By yielding his 'hole vois' to his wife, Florent acknowledges that she is a narrative subject in her own right, is not merely an adjunct to his own desires or self-worth" (p. 130). At the end of the tale, as the lady reveals the reason for her enchantment, the tale shifts from a "quest romance" to an "exile-romance" of which she is the heroine. "The values of the exile paradigm win out: the reorientation of heroism in 'Florent', away from action to endurance, and finally to a new sense of oneself as operating in the context of other selves – in a society – is a tacit rebuke to Amans's self-isolating obsession with his lady as merely the object of his desire" (ibid.). Overcoming this obsession is also a central concern of "Constance" and "Apollonius of Tyre," in each of which "sexual love is not seen in isolation, as a dominating passion which excludes all other considerations; instead it takes its place in a continuum of 'kindly' bonds of love, integrating the love of parents and children, husbands and wives, humans and God," and where Amans habitually isolates sexual love as an all-encompassing obsession, 'Constance' [and by implication 'Apollonius' too] aims to integrate sexuality into a broader pattern, both social and cosmic" (p. 131). The optimism of such tales, manifested particularly in the "morally- and socially-resolved closure" of their endings (p. 133), is challenged elsewhere within the poem, and Dinnick sets forth "Jason and Medea" as an example of "a romance which goes badly wrong" (p. 134). Not only does it end disastrously for the participants but it also lacks proper closure, for Medea goes unpunished, and Genius goes on to tell the story of "Phrixus and Helle" to explain the origin of the fleece, which only emphasizes how Medea's act is the perpetuation of a cycle of family violence which in turn is only part of the larger cycle of events extending from the fall of Thebes to the fall of Troy. The poem appears to privilege the more optimistic view by its placement of "Apollonius of Tyre" at the end, but the conclusion involving Amans is considerably more complex, and Gower's hopes that Richard II might be a new Apollonius obviously turned out to be premature. Dinnick's attempt to explore the generic links among these tales is salutary. He rec-ognizes some of the problems in adequately defining romance on page 133, but the definition by which he links these tales, which emphasizes the pattern of reconciliation and reunion over what he calls "generic markers," excludes other tales that are legitimately entitled to be included as romances (e.g. "The False Bachelor," 2.2501-2781), and it also passes over the long passage on prowess, heroism, and "gentilesse" in the middle of Book 4, certainly central romance concerns. There is more that one might say, therefore, about "romance" in CA, but such an objection does not diminish the value of Dinnicks' discussion of the thematic connections that he discerns among the four tales that he chooses to focuses on. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 19.2] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Redinge of Romance' in Gower's Confessio Amantis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available D. S. Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In "Rex celi Deus," almost certainly written shortly after the usurpation of Henry IV in 1399, Gower--in Donavin's words--"combines structures and strategies taught in 'dictamen' (instruction on prose letters) with the singing of a popular hymn . . . 'Celi Deus Sanctissime,' one in a series of Gregorian chants about creation" (103-04). The result is "a worshipful tone that invokes the coronation liturgy" while simultaneously functioning as "a poetic missive that might be chanted in order to speak to the king directly about the historical moment, locate late fourteenth-century politics in the context of God's reign, remark upon Henry's participation in the cycles of creation, and emphasixe the coronation's liturgical nature" (104). Donavin follows Macaulay and Carlson in noting, further, that many of the later lines of "Rex celi Deus" appear in the so-called "Epistola ad regem" portion of the Vox Clamantis (VI. 581-1198)--thus indicating a typical Gowerian re-purposing of work originally composed for Richard II, as well as providing Donavin with a basis for her investigation of the poem's "rhetorical strategies for letter writing." (106) The epistolary and the hymnic combine in the poem, making it for Donavin "neither a dashed-off effort nor a sly undermining of the new King, but rather a repeated use of language that might be sung for any legitimate king, and yet verses aimed at this particular King who must honour his own position in historical and cosmic cycles." (108) Donavin speculates (necessarily inconclusively) on whether Gower learned his dictamen from Ovid or at the Inns of Court (109-111), and remarks insightfully on the epistolary quality of the "self-portrait: the poet is 'a poor man' on bended knee, offering his gift of words (lines 53-54). The belated, though appropriate, self-identifying image provides a substitute for the poet's absence: whether or not Gower was able to deliver 'Rex Celi Deus' in person, the self-portrait recreates a scene of the poet's epistolary speech wherever it is read." (112). She gives a detailed examination of the poem's rhetorical structure (113-15), and of its possible relation to the hymn "Celi Deus Sanctissime" ((115-18). She concludes, "By opening 'Rex Celi Deus' with a refashioned Gregorian chant, inviting all England to sing along, and attaching these moments of song to an epistolary structure, Gower can celebrate God's sanctioning of the new king, include the people in this blessed event, and directly address Henry. The overall effect of 'Rex Celi Deus,' then, is of language and music both representing eternal cycles and concentrating on a particular moment within them. The coronation of Henry IV to which the poem looks, like any liturgy, focuses on God's blessings from heaven, while at the same time speaks directly to the blessed." (119). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 35.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Donavin, Georgiana Published Donavin, Georgiana. "'Rex Celi Deus': John Gower's Heavenly Missive." In Public Declamations: Essays on Medieval Rhetoric, Education, and Letters in Honour of Martin Camargo. Ed. Donavin, Georgiana and Stodola, Denise. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015, pp. 103-23. ISBN 978-2503547770 Gower Subject Minor Latin Poetry Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Rex Celi Deus': John Gower's Heavenly Missive Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brepols, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Donavin outlines the argument of her essay in its opening paragraph, as follows: "'Rex Celi Deus' is a poem of fifty-six lines written in 1399 to celebrate Henry IV's ascent to England's throne after the deposition of Richard II. There John Gower forges an innovative conjunction of epistolary and musical conventions, as he combines structures and strategies taught in "dictamen" (instruction on prose letters) with the singing of a popular hymn… 'Celi Deus Sanctissime,' one in a series of Gregorian chants about creation. Although recent scholarship has promoted an ironic reading of Gower's poem, 'Rex Celi Deus''s deployment of 'Celi Deus Sanctissime' creates a worshipful tone that invokes the coronation liturgy…." Gower's purpose, she argues, is "to speak to the king directly about the historical moment, locate late fourteenth-century politics in the context of God's reign, remark upon Henry's participation in the cycles of continuing creation, and emphasize the coronation's liturgical nature" (103-04). The essay includes Donavin's translation of Gower's poem, in an appendix (122-23). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 36.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Donavin, Georgiana. Published Donavin, Georgiana. "'Rex Celi Deus': John Gower's Heavenly Missive." In Public Declamations: Essays on Medieval Rhetoric, Education, and Letters in Honour of Martin Camargo. Ed. Georgiana Donavin and Denise Stodola. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. Pp. 103-23. Gower Subject Minor Latin Poetry Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Rex Celi Deus': John Gower's Heavenly Missive. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In SumT III.2196, the lord tells the friar, "Ye been the salt of the erthe and the savour." Modern editors have customarily cited Matthew 5:13 as Chaucer's source, but neither "savour" nor the Latin sapor occurs either in the Vulgate or in any of the English translations that Chaucer might have known. The actual source, Hanks suggests, was VC 3.1997-98: "Hii sunt sal terre, quo nos condimur in orbe,/ Absque sapore suo vix salietur homo;" and Chaucer, recollecting Gower, was the first to use the collocation "salt and savour" in English. Hanks goes on to suggest, logically but more intriguingly, that the first use of "savour" in a translation of the gospels, in the Geneva Bible of 1560, was due to a translator's recollection of the earthy passage in SumT. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 15.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hanks, D. Thomas, Jr. Published Hanks, D. Thomas, Jr.. "'Savour,' Chaucer's 'Summoner's Tale,' and Matthew 5:13." English Language Notes 31 (1994), pp. 25-29. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Vox Clamantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Savour,' Chaucer's 'Summoner's Tale,' and Matthew 5:13 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "By exploring two premodern versions of the tale of Medea through the lens of J. L. Austin's speech act theory," Wade seeks "to tease out the 'unpremeditated articulations' [quoting Paul Strohm, Theory and the Premodern Text, xiii] latent within those texts." For Ovid, Medea is a means to explore "the social and moral ambiguities that involve a woman who chooses to speak and act independently, and as Medea depicts speech as a catalyst of power, her relationship with languages becomes integral to her utilization of the power she is given within Ovid's tale." Gower however "portrays Medea as an ideal figure to be perjured--an innocent, disempowered, and modest lover." The "discrepancy" between "what Genius 'intends' and what he actually does" allows Medea to emerge "from the facade of the disempowered ingenue to become a figure of power." This sequence reveals Gower's intent: he has Genius "take away the narrative space for her to speak in an attempt to control our reception of her through a subverted space of direct discourse." In the end, however, Medea's power is irrepressible, and leads to a violent conclusion elusive of Genius's narrative grasp: "his [i.e., Genius's] subversion of Medea's power through the confinement of her narrative space and illocutionary presence only demonstrates the unsettling nature of Medea as she remains a powerful figure despite her lack of speech." [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 28.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Wade, James Published Wade, James. "'Sche made many a wonder soun': Performative Utterances and the Figure of Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses and John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Postgraduate English 9 (2004), n.p. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sche made many a wonder soun': Performative Utterances and the Figure of Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses and John Gower's Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "'Scripture Veteris Capiunt Exempla Futuri': John Gower's Transformation of a Fable of Avianus." In Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck. Ed. Hahn, Thomas and Lupack, Alan. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997, pp. 341-54. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review Yeager examines Gower's tale of "The Travellers and the Angel" (CA 2.291-372) in comparison to its source in Avianus (Fables 22). In order to depict the nature of Envy, Gower chooses a tale whose central metaphor is blindness. He brings it within a sphere of Christian reference by attributing to Jove many of the attributes of the Christian God and replacing Apollo with an angel. He also emphasizes the choices that each man makes: each man is depicted as a sinner rather than merely as an embodiment of a sin. The choice of the greedy man, to defer his request, better reveals his nature than in Avianus, where he asks for nothing. The angel's offer of a gift for the "kindeschipe? of their hospitality resonates ironically: where the word implies fellowship and likeness, it also draws attention to the men's difference from the angel and to the way in which they act irrationally, according to "kinde.? In his conclusion, finally, Genius draws an application not just to Amans but to the broader world which "empeireth? because of sins like those that the two men illustrate, asserting again the relation between individual virtue and common profit that was identified as the major theme of the poem by the man who is honored by the festschrift in which Yeager's essay appears. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 18.2] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Scripture Veteris Capiunt Exempla Futuri': John Gower's Transformation of a Fable of Avianus Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available D.S. Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "Debates over translations in medieval Britain occurred at the crossroads of Latin and the insular vernaculars: it was here that writers (ecclesiastic and secular) argued about not only the proper relation of past to present, but of linguistic to national identity, of sacred to secular power. This dissertation looks at medieval writers in whose works we find a conflict between the practice and the representation of translation, seeking to resituate these translations within their social contexts. . . . [Writers considered include Geoffrey of Monmouth, Trevisa, and Chaucer.] This context also yields fresh interpretations of other late medieval writers, including John Gower and Thomas Hoccleve." Directed by Marie Boroff and Lee Patterson. [JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Robertson, Kellie Paige Published Robertson, Kellie Paige. "'Sethe that Babyl was ybuld': Translation and Dissent in Later Medieval England." PhD thesis, Yale University, 1997. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sethe that Babyl was ybuld': Translation and Dissent in Later Medieval England. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Pamela M. Yee investigates Gower's use of illness in "The Tale of Constantine and Sylvester" in Book II of the CA, largely through analogy to recent work in the use of narrative formation in the medical diagnostic process. Yee characterizes a shift from seeing physicians as the protagonists in medical narratives toward Rita Charon's model of physicians attending to patients' own narratives of illness and treatment. She uses the work of Glending Olson to connect this relatively recent paradigm to some medieval medical approaches, though she concedes that Charon's model differs from medieval models. Yee then shifts her focus to Gower, by pointing out that the relationship between Genius and Amans parallels this doctor-patient relationship, with sin and redemption taking the role of medical illness and cure. This sets up her analysis of a tale that maps Amans' analysis of sin through narrative to an actual illness: the emperor Constantine's leprosy. After an overview of previous approaches to this tale, she contrasts the medical approaches of Constantine's court clerks and of Pope Sylvester--the court clerks do not model the use of patient-centered medical narrative theorized by Charon, with the result that their proposed cure, bathing in the blood of the innocent, fails to address the underlying cause for Constantine's illness, and also accentuates the "wider social disruption" (92) of the emperor's illness. Sylvester's approach then does manage to listen carefully enough to Constantine, and thus to model the sort of close attention to story advocated by Charon. This allows Sylvester to identify the underlying moral causes for Constantine's illness, and leads to the solution through moral exempla and conversion to Christianity. Yee's analysis extends Gower's metaphor of medicine for spiritual cure through the "ritualized contact between doctor and patient" (97) of Constantine's baptism. Yee goes on to argue, however, that once Constantine has benefitted from such a healthy affiliation with Sylvester, he ironically reverts to the same poor communication model of his court clerks that nearly led to his blood bath. His forcible conversion of his empire and the problematic Donation of Constantine challenge the very compassion that Sylvester modeled in his cure of the emperor. This reading thus extends the medical paradigm of the contrasting treatments of Constantine's leprosy to the emperor's own authoritarianism, and views Constantine as a failed physician. In contrast, when Yee returns her focus to the frame of Amans and Genius, she is able to explain Genius' roundabout narrative response to Amans' confession as a more successful instantiation of this discursive model of medicine. [RAL. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 35.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yee, Pamela M Published Yee, Pamela M. "'So schalt thou double hele finde': Narrative Medicine in the 'Tale of Constantine and Sylvester'." South Atlantic Review 79.3-4 (2015), pp. 89-104. ISSN 0277-335X Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'So schalt thou double hele finde': Narrative Medicine in the 'Tale of Constantine and Sylvester' Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Duffell documents much more fully his claim that Chaucer's model was Italian rather than French, and he also makes some rather more specific claims about Gower. He includes examples from CB under three of the types in his classification of ten-syllable lines (F, G, and H; pp. 279-82), none of which was used by medieval French poets. (This time, stresses are marked in boldface.) On the basis of the presumed early date of CB, he states that "it is probable that Gower was experimenting with this line in French at the same time as his friend Chaucer was doing so in English, in the late 1370s" (p. 279); and though he notes that Gower also employs iambic pentameters in English in IPP, he attributes Gower's use of all three verse types to an Italian model, claiming that one variant in particular "proves that Gower is here imitating an endecasillabo in French and not a Chaucerian pentameter" (p. 280). He thus refers in his conclusion to Chaucer's and Gower's "common interest in Italian versification" (p. 284). His earlier essay leads one to believe that Gower's line emerged as a direct consequence of the nature of his language. The more recent essay attributes to Gower a previously unknown familiarity with Italian, despite also observing that Chaucer's knowledge of Italian made him quite unusual for a fourteenth-century Englishman (p. 271). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 19.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Duffell, Martin J. Published Duffell, Martin J.. "'The Craft So Long to Lerne': Chaucer's Invention of the Iambic Pentameter." Chaucer Review 34.3 (2000), pp. 269-288. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Cinkante Balades Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Craft So Long to Lerne': Chaucer's Invention of the Iambic Pentameter Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Penn State University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Although not concerned with Gower per se, Jones focuses squarely on medieval elements visible in "Pericles," whose plot was ultimately derived (whether wholly by Shakespeare or not) from Gower's "Apollonius of Tyre" in CA 8. Noting that for some in the Middle Ages (including the anonymous pamphleteer behind The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge, ca. 1380-1425, with whose opinions Jones opens) "dead books" offered an illiterate public little spiritual solace or counsel. Preferable were plays, essentially "quike bookis" that all could read through the actors' efforts. Jones argues that such a view of the theatre's exemplarity underlies the development of the chorus or Prologue character as a figure of authority in early modern drama, both for good (e.g., Mercy in "Mankind") or for ill (as in the case of the "subversive authority" of the Machiavel [204-05]). One such figure is "Gower" in "Pericles" but because "Gower is also a historical figure and subject to . . . visual iconicity" (206) his recognized status as a moral writer for Shakespeare's audience (still inhabiting a time when print culture was fluid, and "where perhaps the literary and performative modes of storytelling were not so entirely disparate entities" [207]) could be counted on to lend his words added authority in his role as Prologue. Thus, Jones argues, "Shakespeare's play projects Gower as a hybrid of archaic alterity and iconic familiarity" (209). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 28.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Jones, Kelly Published Jones, Kelly. "'The Quick and the Dead': Performing the Poet Gower in Pericles." In Shakespeare and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Performance and Adaptation of the Plays with Medieval Sources or Settings. Ed. Driver, Martha W., and Ray, Sid. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009, pp. 201-214. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Quick and the Dead': Performing the Poet Gower in Pericles Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available McFarland, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Countering past analyses that read the depiction of alchemy in Book IV of the CA as banal, Fletcher argues for that passage's centrality to the Confessio. Physically at the middle of the poem, Gower's discussion of alchemy is also in her view thematically essential, as it develops the role of human labor as a driving metaphor within the world of the poem. She sees the passage's treatment of the movement "from base to perfection, from ignoble to noble" (119) in metals as symbolic of the larger moral movement of the poem itself. Seeing vice or sin as parallel to the impurities to be purged from base metals, alchemy then becomes a model for Gower's conceptualization of the individual's moral development. Fletcher then goes on to outline critical reaction to Gower's approach to alchemy, noting the parallels to Chaucer's "Canon's Yeoman's Tale," and the apparent error of identifying Jupiter with brass, rather than with tin as in Chaucer. Gower's choice of words, using the term "vice" among other moral terms for the imperfections to be purged, then cements the idea that the passage is at least as philosophical and moralizing as it is alchemical. The term "clergie" to represent the learning required (120) further reinforces her vision of the scene's centrality to Gower's moral approach. Gower's explanation that certain purifications are no longer possible in a less-than-perfect world such as Gower's own, expresses in Fletcher's view the "senectus mundi" theory that James Dean has identified in late medieval culture. She is able to relate this sense of universal decay to Gower's analysis of human moral decay both in the Prologue to the CA and also in a passage in the MO that depicts a similar deterioration in the world. Returning to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in the Prologue, Fletcher then uses the "error" of brass in the alchemy passage to link that passage to the body metaphor of the "ages of man" in the dream, which she sees as "alchemy in reverse" (125). The brass in the alchemy passage then becomes not an error, but a reference back to the dream image of the Prologue. This linkage of alchemy and a larger view of the world then leads to a more linguistic analysis, as Fletcher moves from the alchemy passage's observation that old alchemical texts are no longer legible to a sense that signification itself is decayed, as are the materials of alchemy and the world itself. The purging of vice in alchemy, even if imperfect, then becomes Gower's solution to this problem of moral decay, when Genius' analysis of sloth overlaps the alchemy passage's use of terms "vice" and "vertu." Ultimately for Fletcher, it is this link between alchemy and moral development that underlines Gower's sense of "the powerful elemental intertwining of mankind, earth, and the heavens" (129). [RAL. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 35.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fletcher, Clare Published Fletcher, Clare. "'The science of himself is trewe': Alchemy in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'." South Atlantic Review 79.3-4 (2015), pp. 118-131. ISSN 0277-335X Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The science of himself is trewe': Alchemy in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Gower, Bertolet remarks, "seems to be uniformly hostile to aliens in England, especially alien traders . . . but he levels his harshest criticism against the 'Lombards' (Gower's term for all northern Italians) in both his 'Mirour de l'Omme' and 'Confessio Amantis'" (197). Nonetheless, "Anti-Lombard hostility . . . is not exceptional to Gower" (197) and it was at its height during "the third quarter of the fourteenth century when Gower was writing the 'Mirour'" (197). Bertolet sets out to discover "Why did Gower and his contemporaries find the Lombards such a threat to their sense of order?" (197). To pursue this line of inquiry, Bertolet will "read Gower's comments against events in and around London from roughly 1350-80," most of which he gleans from the "London Letter-books" (197-98), and from court records. Two murder trials offer particular good evidence: those of two prominent Italian merchants, Nicholas Sardouche and Janus Imperiale, the first in 1370 and the second in 1378 (199-209). The rest of the essay consists of a close reading of passages from the MO--in which "Gower makes one of the earliest arguments in England for local and national commercial policies to be in harmony with each other" (210)--and the CA--where Gower's "hostility towards the Lombards is consistent" with his position in the MO (218). Gower's views on the Lombards becomes part of his political agenda, since "His two poetic complaints about them serve as a warning to all readers to beware of a group of men who come from a land of division and who seek to spread this division wherever they go, undermining the moral function of trade and the vital fabric of harmony which keeps all cities, especially London, together in social love and common profit" (218).] [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 30.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bertolet, Craig Published Bertolet, Craig. "'The slyeste of alle': The Lombard Problem in John Gower's London." In John Gower: Manuscripts, Readers, Contexts. Ed. Urban, Malte. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009. Pp. 197-218. Gower Subject Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The slyeste of alle': The Lombard Problem in John Gower's London Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brepols. Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Yeager first reminds us, with due acknowledgement to Peter Nicholson, that Gower, not Chaucer, was the first redactor of the tale in Nicholas Trevet's "Chronicle," and it was he who distilled it into the form with which we are more familiar. While referring to Trevet at various junctures of his essay, then, Yeager focuses on the differences between the tales of Gower and Chaucer, and, just as importantly, between their tellers. Students can usually "see that the Man of Law is not 'Chaucer'" (162): this pilgrim "is an active teller, one of the most intrusive, in fact, in 'The Canterbury Tales'" (162), and one who is clearly "trying to win a free dinner at the Southwark Inn" (163). In the "Confessio Amantis," Genius is also an "authorial screen," but the temptation to mistake him . . . for "Gower" seems to be much greater, and consequently harder to banish" (162). His role is to "enlighten Amans . . . who, for most of Gower's poem, is the only other 'real' persona we encounter" (163). Obviously, this "framing fiction . . . will raise quite different demands" for storytelling than does Chaucer's, and thus considering the tale of Constance "in context," Yeager focuses on Gower's "poetics," or what he does with imagery and language that distinguish his treatment of the subject from that of others. The use of particular words and images repeatedly, in a variety of contexts and for different purposes, over the course of his treatment of Envy, the section of the poem that includes his tale of Acis and Galatea as well as that of Constance, reveals "what is exclusively and characteristically Gower's (163). In the end, his "Constance, by design a part of a very different, intentionally exemplary form of narrative [than Chaucer's], remains more 'constant' and loses not an ounce of her integrity or any of her value as a model of obedient virtue" (170). At the same time that virtue here garners a rich "poetic" analysis, then, the tale manifests the "unique, multilayed exemplarity of Gower's" which is what "we strive to teach our students . . . to see and to appreciate knowledgeably" (170). [Kurt Olsson. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 31.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published Yeager, R. F.. "'The Tale of Constance' in Context." In Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower. Ed. Yeager, R. F., and Gastle, Brian W. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2011, pp. 159-71. ISBN 9781603290999 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Tale of Constance' in Context Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Modern Language Association of America, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Burke focuses on the way in which the two nearly precisely contemporary poets adopted, and adapted, the role of prophet, the one who "speaks truth to power," from biblical tradition, Gower in his VC and CA, Christine in her "Lamentacion sur lex maux de la France," which was written during a time when Christine feared that on-going disputes between the factions of Armagnac and Orléans might lead to civil war. Burke explains how each poet made a strategic selection of tropes associated with the "vox clamantis," as she depicts two writers "who struggled to engage with the moral and political challenges of their troubled situation. Clearly, neither saw any contradiction between their role as poets crafting works of pleasure and instruction, and as prophets calling on the powerful to repent and mend their ways, for the salvation of all their people. Indeed, they may have perceived the two roles as practically one and the same" (130-31). [Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 32.1]. Reprinted in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 264 (Detroit: Gale, 2017), pp. 246-57. Author/Editor Author/Editor Burke, Linda Barney Published Burke, Linda Barney. "'The Voice of One Crying': John Gower, Christine de Pizan, and the Tradition of Elijah the Prophet." ES: Revista de Filología Inglesa 33.1 (2012), pp. 117-35. ISSN 0210-9689 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Vox Clamantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Voice of One Crying': John Gower, Christine de Pizan, and the Tradition of Elijah the Prophet Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Peronelle's role in providing both the solution to the riddle and advice to the king on his own behavior in Gower's tale of "The Three Questions" is not unlike that which Chaucer attributes to such women as Prudence (in Melibee) and Alceste (LGW). It has its roots, Schieberle argues, in the role reserved for women as intercessors in contemporary ideology (as illustrated, for instance, in the historical examples of English queens pleading on behalf of the less powerful), which in turn has its roots in the model of Marian intercession, also invoked by Peronelle's humble conduct in the tale. Women were able to exercise such influence over their husbands and monarchs precisely because their "subordinate status allow[ed them] to challenge the king without threatening his ultimate authority" (93). "In Peronelle, Gower imagines the possibility that a woman could exercise power both privately and publicly" (95). As the daughter of one of the king's knights, however, not yet directly related to the king, Peronelle raises the threat of a woman acting independently, a problem that Gower resolves by the way in which he arranges for her to be married to the king, restoring the proper hierarchy of gender at the end. Peronelle is one of several examples of female counselors in CA, all of whom (unlike several of the males who appear in a similar position in the poem) are successful in their attempts to influence their kings. "Such a special status for women suggests strongly that Gower finds in the image of the woman advisor a compelling model for counsel in general" (92), a model that he himself imitates in his own efforts to offer non-threatening advice to his king. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Schieberle, Misty Published Schieberle, Misty. "'Thing which a man mai noght areche': Women and Counsel in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Chaucer Review 42 (2007), pp. 91-109. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Thing which a man mai noght areche': Women and Counsel in Gower's Confessio Amantis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Penn State University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Discusses the appearance of Gower the poet in Robert Greene's "Greenes Vision" of 1594 and in Shakespeare's "Pericles" (1611), and the borrowings from CA in Shakespeare's earlier "Comedy of Errors" and in a 1640 pamphlet entitled "A Certain Relation of the Hog-faced Gentlewoman, called Tannekin Skinker" (in which the example of Florent is narrated in order to suggest the possibility of an equally happy metamorphosis for the unfortunate young woman of the title). In Greene's work, Chaucer and Gower are each called upon to tell stories in which the issue of the moral value of literature becomes entangled with the issue of the moral dangers posed by the beauty of the women in their tales. The author awards the prize--for the uprightness of both tale and character--to Gower. Cooper has much of interest to say about how each of these works perpetuated Gower's reputation both as moralist and as storyteller. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Cooper, Helen Published Cooper, Helen. "'This worthy olde writer': Pericles and other Gowers, 1592-1640." In A Companion to Gower. Ed. Echard, Siân. Cambridge: Brewer, 2004, pp. 99-113. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'This worthy olde writer': Pericles and other Gowers, 1592-1640 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brewer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Shoaf, R. A. Published Shoaf, R. A.. "'Tho love made him an hard eschange' and 'With false brocage hath take usure': Narcissus and Echo in the Confessio Amantis." Mediaevalia 16 (1993), pp. 197-207. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review Analyzes two of Gower's tales as examples of Gower's typically "determinate" reading -- setting out prescriptively the meaning of the stories he retells from Ovid -- in contrast to the "indeterminate" reading more typical of Chaucer. The way in which Gower has chosen to read Ovid is informed, in Shoaf's account, by Freud. In the key lines that Shoaf cites, Gower reveals his "understanding of the economy of eros and thanatos in the human psyche" (p. 201), mixing classical and Christian notions in order to condemn Narcissus for his presumptuous refusal to give his love and Echo for her avaricious procuration. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Tho love made him an hard eschange' and 'With false brocage hath take usure': Narcissus and Echo in the Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Kinch, Ashby Published Kinch, Ashby. "'To thenke what was in hir wille': A Female Reading Context for the Findern Anthology." Neophilologus 91 (2007), pp. 729-44. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review The Findern MS (Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.6), compiled in the last decades of the fifteenth century, is notable for bearing the signatures of several women, who may have been not just owners and readers but also scribes of at least some portions of the book, which was evidently compiled piecemeal over an extended period of time. For Kinch, the MS provides valuable evidence not just of the tastes of a provincial audience but also for the way in which it "illuminat[es] a literary subculture with demonstrable female participation" (p. 731). "Female reading interests" (p. 733) are discernible in the choice of texts, in the selection of portions of these texts, and in the juxtapositions of these selections within the book. Two of the three sections that Kinch examines most closely are the pairing of Gower's tales of Philomela and Rosiphelee and the juxtaposition of Chaucer's "Parliament of Fowls" with Gower's tale of "The Three Questions." In each case, her close readings of the texts themselves are complemented by the way in which each is "recontextualized in a manuscript compiled by women" (p. 740). In the first two tales, "The compilers . . . draw together two stories of female isolation and imprisonment (one involuntary, one self-imposed), and of female interiority (one a physical limitation, the other a will to self-reflection)" (p. 734) which "are both oddly illuminative reflections on the powers and limits--though mostly the limits--of female resistance" (p. 734). By preceding "Rosiphelee" with an excerpt from Amans' speech on his unsuccessful efforts to impress his lady, the compilers also set up a contrast between Tereus and Gower's "inoffensive dupe" (p. 734). "Of course, the two figures are not entirely oppositional: they strangely parallel one another in their persistence, and, again, in the way they impose themselves on the women they seek out. A reader of the court tradition might imagine that most men, though they profess the platitudes of courtly love like Amans, are really more like Tereus at heart; and the specific juxtaposition of these texts certainly facilitates this ironic reading" (p. 734). Both PF and "The Three Questions" "demonstrate intelligent female responses to authority" (p. 739). "The formel voices the positive response to the constraint to which Rosiphelee must submit: although forced to make a choice in love, the woman does exert a certain authority in retaining the prerogative on when and how to exercise that choice" (p. 740). Peronelle, on the other hand, "is shrewd, working on behalf of both her and her father's best interests, in many ways affirming the most positive aspects of the 'patriarchal bargain': if a woman can provide wisdom that advances the values of men between whom she is exchanged, then she validates the proper function of a patriarchal system, even as she benefits directly from the exchange. . . . Peronelle's eloquence implicitly attests to the importance of educating women as a vehicle for the social advancement of the family" (p. 740-41). The "marriage imperative" at work in these tales "no doubt resonated in direct ways" with the lives of the women who compiled this book (p. 742); "one also hopes," Kinch concludes, that "when some female reader . . . read that Rosphilee nestled under the shaw 'and ther sche stod al one stille/To thenke what was in hir wille," that this reader might have seen the potential for something different, an experience of reflexive self-awareness that we have come to identify as one the liberating powers of literature" (p. 743). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 27.2] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'To thenke what was in hir wille': A Female Reading Context for the Findern Anthology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In expressing his distaste for "unkynde abhomynaciouns" in his introduction, ML distinguishes his tale from stories like "Apollonius of Tyre." The distinction results in a peculiar distortion of the Apollonius story, in which the brief episode of incest at the beginning is overshadowed by the lengthy account of the power of "kynde" in the adventures of the hero. It also draws attention to a feature of the traditional Constance story that ML suppresses, the father's incestuous desire for his daughter which both motivates the ensuing action and gives sense to the many variations of parent-child relations throughout the tale. MLT is marked by this attempt to suppress that which ML finds repugnant but also by the repeated reassertion of the incest theme in subtle but ironic ways. Gower's version exhibits no such preoccupation. Unlike ML, Gower directly links his "Constance" to his "Apollonius": in addition to the remarkable similarities in plot, he emphasizes in both the power of "kinde love" that draws father to daughter at the end, and he uses almost the same words to describe the two reunions (CA 2.1381-82; 8.1707-8). Like Chaucer, Gower was probably aware of the incest motive in the traditional Constance story, but he kept Trivet's version of the opening since incest was to be a central theme in both "Apollonius" and Book 8 of CA. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 7.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Goodall, Peter Published Goodall, Peter. "'Unkynde abhomynaciouns' in Chaucer and Gower." Parergon 5 (1987), pp. 94-102. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Unkynde abhomynaciouns' in Chaucer and Gower Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Examines the association between violence and sexuality, which is either suppressed or left unexpressed by Genius, particularly in the tales of "Phoenus and Daphne," "Canace and Machaire," and "Orestes," in which the construction of masculine selfhood either requires or results in violence against a woman. Donavin detects two conflicting sorts of taboo at work in Book 3, one preventing Genius' acknowledgment of the link between sexuality and violence, the other expressed in Genius' prohibitions against Wrath. Because of the former, Gower reveals, the latter are ineffectual in containing violence and instead result in its propagation. Gower also allows the implicit violence in heterosexual love to be revealed in his characterization of the stages of passion in "love's court" in Book 3. He reveals the antidote to this violence in the figure of Venus, who "escapes the position of the victimized feminine by actually encouraging the violent processes of heterosexual attraction" (229). The resolution does not come about until Book 8, when Venus hands Amans the glass in which he finally recognizes his old age. "The goddess, like other female characters in Book III, takes responsibility for her part in forming male identity, but does so in a way that deflects feelings about selfhood away from her and back onto the male subject" (230). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 27.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Donavin, Georgiana Published Donavin, Georgiana. "'When reson torneth into rage': Violence in Book III of the Confessio Amantis." In On John Gower: Essays at the Millennium. Ed. Yeager, R.F. Studies in Medieval Culture (46). Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2007, pp. 216-34. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'When reson torneth into rage': Violence in Book III of the Confessio Amantis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Medieval Institute, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Included as Chapter 5 in a book-length study on the recovery of classical histories of Alexander the Great in twelfth- to seventeenth-century England, Stone's chapter on Gower examines the portrayal of Alexander to trace the evolution of the poet's ideas about the causes and ramifications of the collapse of Alexander's empire through his three major works. Stone demonstrates that whereas Gower represents Alexander as the victim of Fortune's whims in the MO, he gravitates toward a more "historical" view of Alexander in his subsequent works, ascribing his fall to his lack of self-control and his failure to heed Aristotle's teaching. As Gower looks more deeply into the question of moral culpability, he also pays increasing attention to the magnitude of the suffering that the conqueror caused through his incessant pursuit of personal gain. Stone argues that in thus presenting Alexander as a paradigm of misguided and destructive rule, Gower's poems reject the positive conceptions of the conqueror found in the romance tradition and align themselves instead with such twelfth-century monastic texts as the St Albans Compilation, the first compendium of classical sources on the history of the Macedonian Empire, produced, like Gower's later works, in an era of political unrest. [YK. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 36.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Stone, Charles Russell. Published Stone, Charles Russell. "'Moral' Gower and the Rejection of Alexander." In From Tyrant to Philosopher-King: A Literary History of Alexander the Great in Medieval and Early Modern England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 141–63. Gower Subject Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "'Moral' Gower and the Rejection of Alexander. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In the "Confessio Amantis," Grinnell argues, "violence against children, specifically male children, . . . turns in upon itself, circling back to damage the murderous parents," yielding "a self-annihilation that consistently destroys attempts to build an ordered, fertile familial structure in imitation of the ordered kingdom of God." Per Nicholas Orme's assertion that in the Middle Ages the relationship of parent to child reflected "that of king to subject and God to humanity" (5), this has consequences: "familial violence produces political violence as an unstable kingdom is disrupted by the blood of dead children" (1). Grinnell draws evidence from three tales primarily: "Canace and Machaire," "Jason and Medea," and "Tereus" (with a brief, important analysis of "Phrixus and Helle," [6]). All three build out from representation of child-birth in some--sometimes metaphoric, always horrific--form, in which the female protagonists, despite their responsibility for their children's death, are not condemned by Gower--rather, "Gower . . . concentrates on the male character's responsibility for provoking the violence" (5)--a failure of importance, as Grinnell sees it, since males govern in Gower's society, and the "young" lover Amans will become the aged "John Gower," incapable of "procreation" except through poetic tale-telling (or retelling). Such linkages, which Grinnell renders with dizzying, albeit convincing, evidence from sources including Ovid and the "Roman de la Rose," lead to her conclusion: "Nature, as Gower points out in the Prologue to the 'Confessio,' is unnatural, fallen, subject to time and death. [It is a "world turned upsidedown" (6).] Therefore, in the 'Confessio Amantis,' all births are deaths, and all children are murdered by their parents when they pass on original sin, until the work culminates in the death of the narrator and the birth of the author, both his father and his son" (9). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Grinnell, Natalie. Published Grinnell, Natalie. "[H]e which can no pite know": Murdered Children in the "Confessio Amantis." Investigo 1 (2023): 1-13. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "[H]e which can no pite know": Murdered Children in the "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "This thesis explores John Gower's English work, the 'Confessio Amantis,' from three primary perspectives. This produces an interpretation of the work that emphasizes the completeness of Gower's vision therein whilst also explaining the methods by which he made that original 'intentio' manifest. Chapters I and IV focus on the physical structure and framework of the text: the design, the schema of the Seven Deadly Sins, the prologue and epilogue, and the metre. To demonstrate the significance of the structure of the 'Confessio Amantis,' the thesis analyzes the relationship of these elements to the text's 'intentio' and its reception. Chapters II and V examine the 'Confesssio Amantis' in its social, political and cultural context. The history of the Church's original appropriation of 'auctoritas' is explored, along with Gower's subsequent reappropriation of it as a lay political concept and his narrative justifications for this. As a parallel to this, Gower's own references to the contemporary domestic political situation are examined for the insight which they offer into his reactions to the cultural climate and his motivation in writing the text. Chapter III demonstrates the underrated narrative artistry of the 'Confessio Amantis,' and discusses failings of the prevailing critical tradition. Comparison with some key texts from Gower's contemporary, Chaucer, explores possible reasons for Gower's poor reputation by examining narrative in terms of factors such as theme, genre and 'intentio' rather than the stylistics and characterization that have attracted most attention in the past. This chapter also explores the effect of those factors on the alterations which Gower made to his source narratives, and how this emphasizes Gower's commitment to a distinctive 'middel weie'. The thesis concludes by emphasizing the sustained and coherent nature of Gower's vision for his work and the literary significance which this affords him." Author/Editor Author/Editor Chatten, N. M. L. Published Chatten, N.M.L.  "A gret ensample thou schalt finde": On the Artistry and Ethics of the "Confessio Amantis." Ph.D. Dissertation. The University of Wales College of Cardiff, 1999. Dissertation Abstracts International C70.23. Abstract available via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "A gret ensample thou schalt finde": On the Artistry and Ethics of the "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Shoaf, R. Allen. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Published Shoaf, R. Allen. "'A Pregnant Argument': Bodies and Literacies in Dante's Comedy, Chaucer's Troilus, and Henryson's Testament." In Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in Honour of Margaret Bridges. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011. Pp. 193–208. ISBN: 9781443827393. Review Shoaf argues for the need to expand critical notions of gendered "literacies," ranging widely in order to demonstrate how Dante, Chaucer, and Robert Henryson use various kinds of verbal play to explore expansions and contractions in literature and literacy, particularly focusing on Chaucer's allusion to Pyramus and Thisbe in "Troilus and Criseyde" (4.1247-48). In an aside that explores the meaning of the allusion in Chaucer. Shoaf includes discussion (pp. 195-97) of Gower's account of Pyramus and Thisbe (CA 3.1331-1502), observing in it punning play upon "contek" as a subset of anger and as the contact impossible for the lovers because of their dividing wall: "The impetuosity of the two lovers is the 'contek' that prevents their contact" (196). Like Ovid, Shoaf tells us, Gower explores the "necessity of walls" insofar as they provoke and restrict communication: without walls, communication paradoxically ends in self-destruction. [MA.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011 Title A name given to the resource "A Pregnant Argument": Bodies and Literacies in Dante's "Comedy," Chaucer's "Troilus," and Henryson's "Testament." Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Walsh, Brian. Published Walsh, Brian. "A Priestly Farewell": Gower's Tomb and Religious Change in "Pericles." Religion & Literature 45, no. 3 (2013): 81-113. ISSN 0888-3769 Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Confessio Amantis Biography of Gower Review Walsh casts his essay as a contribution to ongoing questions about sustained or residual Catholic attitudes and practices in post-Reformation England, arguing that the characterization of Gower in William Shakespeare and George Wilkins's "Pericles" contributes to the play's "Catholic-Protestant dialectic" (82), more specifically, its "syncretistic tendency" in depicting "old and new forms of worship" cast as, respectively, "sacramental" and "commemorative" mourning rituals (91-92). The "legacy" of Gower, Walsh argues, "encoded [early modern] England's medieval religious past," and the character Gower, presented as a revenant in the play, is an "avatar of the medieval" (93) that enabled "the fantasy" that Gower himself has left his tomb "and come down the street to the Globe," standing forth as "a figure for ongoing, even mobile appropriations of the religious past" (101). Walsh posits that the playwrights and their audience plausibly, even probably, were familiar with Gower's tomb, and he suggests the tomb should be considered a source for the play's dialectic of religious outlooks. He describes the state and status of the tomb in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, considers the discussions of it in Thomas Berthelette's edition of CA (a clear source of "Pericles") and in John Stow's "Survey of London," and emphasizes the fact that the tomb survived the sixteenth-century destruction of the chapel of St. John the Baptist's chapel that originally surrounded it. Constructed as a chantry for intercessory prayer, the tomb was never "wholly disenchanted" (100), Walsh tells us, and, in the play, the effigy was "animated" by a "living, breathing actor" (96), thereby effecting a bridge between past and present that is foregrounded by archaic speech, various details of Gower's choric commentary, and (one might add) costuming. Among various observations that Walsh makes about Gower's early modern reception is the detail that Gower appears as an "advertising hook" on the title page of George Wilkins's 1608 "novelization" of "Pericles" ("The Painfull Aduentures of Pericles . . ."), even though Gower never appears in this prose version, indicating that "Wilkins or his printer evidently expected possible customers to see Gower as inseparable from the story" (93). The title-page image, however, looks nothing like the tomb effigy. On the other hand, in supporting his claims about early modern familiarity with Gower's tomb, Walsh offers "a tantalizing bit of circumstantial evidence" (104) that Shakespeare knew the interior of St. Saviour's--an account of the burial of Edmund Shakespeare in 1607. Earlier in his essay, Walsh suggests in passing that Gower's tomb may also have influenced Paulina's tomb in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale." [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 37.2.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 Title A name given to the resource "A Priestly Farewell": Gower's Tomb and Religious Change in "Pericles." Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Rothauser synopsizes her essay as follows: "Medieval authors describe not only the presence of water near and in cities, but also the use of waters by the citizens. We see water being used primarily in three roles in these texts: 1) a defining element; 2) a protective barrier; and 3) a cleansing agent. In depictions of historical or fictitious earthly cities, we see water used in these functions individually, or perhaps dually, suggesting an important topos for water, but not a formulaic use of it. When all of these roles appear in one description, we find the perfection that exists in the celestial city of 'Pearl.' But when these roles are subverted, we see the apocalyptic nightmare of John Gower's London in 'Vox Clamantis.' It is through the author's manipulation of water in these three roles that we can see how medieval authors may express their concept of the urban space" (246). Rothauser considers a variety of medieval texts--including descriptions of London from William Fitz Stephen, the London "Letter-Books," and Lydgate's "Troy Book"--but Pearl (along with "St. Erkenwald") and VC (at times accompanied by "Mirour de l'Omme") are the texts she assesses most consistently, observing allegorical idealizations in "Pearl" and distortions or inversions of these ideals in Gower, but leaving what they reveal about ideas of urban space not sharply articulated. When discussing water as a "defining element" of urban depiction, she argues that in VC (and in MO) it "does not define the city itself, but rather Gower's preferred social hierarchy between city and country," so that, in the cities, water "much like the peasants . . . must be constrained" (257). Similarly, water offers no urban protection in VC, where the gates in the vision of London are breached and its walls destroyed by the "flood" of peasants (264). Moreover, the "normative function" of water as cleansing agent is inverted when the nurturing fountains of Gower's city are bloodied and rendered pestilent (269). At the end of Book 1, however, through a figurative version of water as the "baptismal medium" (270), Rothauser argues, social order is restored and the dreamer's apocalyptic vision approaches closure through "God's manipulation of water" (272). Here, and elsewhere in her argument, Rothauser discloses less about Gower's "concept of the urban space," her stated goal, than she does about his notions of the moral dimensions of social order. If the two are somehow inextricable or analogous, as they may well be, clarification of their relations would be helpful. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Rothauser, Britt C. L. Published Rothauser, Britt C. L. "'A Reuer … Brighter Þen Boþe the Sunne and Mone': The Use of Water in the Medieval Consideration of Urban Space." In Albrecht Classen, ed. Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. (Berlin: De Gruyter; 2009). Pp. 245-72. Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "A Reuer--Brighter Þen Boþe the Sunne and Mone: The Use of Water in the Medieval Consideration of Urban Space. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Nolan's essay covers a wide ground. Ultimately her concern is to capture and delineate Gower's notion of the poet and poetry throughout his work: his "exploration, carried on in French, Latin, and English, repeatedly asks what poetry is 'for'" (243) [emphasis hers]. In the MO she finds Gower coming to terms with a dichotomous tension between "agency" (there complexly identifiable with Fortuna, and with the Kantian "sublime") and "sensation" (embodied in the beauty of the Virgin, and the aesthetic reward of its replication experienced through adoration). Each formative purpose requires its own unique poetic language/discursive mode. By contrasting Fortuna, especially present in the second of the Mirour's three large sections, with the Virgin, the focus of the third, Nolan is able to argue for the poem as foundational to Gower's oeuvre, an "experimental" space in which he adjudicates for the first time the "didactic and the sensual" (i.e., what later he himself terms "lust" and "lore" in the "Confessio Amantis"). As she concludes: Recreating the experience of the sublime or the beautiful, radical contingency or divinity, lies at the heart of Gower's aesthetic enterprise, beginning with the 'Mirour' and persisting throughout his career, and always in tension (but never subordinate to) his identity as 'moral Gower'" (243). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Nolan, Maura Published Nolan, Maura. "Agency and the Poetics of Sensation in Gower's 'Mirour de l'Omme'." In Answerable Style: The Idea of the Literary in Medieval England, ed. Frank Grady and Andrew Galloway. (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2013). 214-43. Gower Subject Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Agency and the Poetics of Sensation in Gower's "Mirour de l'Omme." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review McCabe discusses the multiple readership that Gower cultivates: "an emergent literary public" (266) and a private aristocratic audience. Gower's poetry takes up themes of common profit, erotic love, and the complex relationships between the two. In this respect, it may be compared to the writings of Alain Chartier (c.1385-1430), who is interested in the "exchangeability" (267) of political and amatory matter. In his prose "Quadrilogue invectif," Chartier portrays "affairs of state in terms of desire" (268), generalizing civic responsibility across the three medieval estates. In "Confessio Amantis," Gower likewise assigns the blame for social chaos to everyone ("ous alle," Prol.525), directly connecting the public and the private. Similarly, in the "Traitié," Gower seems to be addressing both "one noble patron" and "an indeterminate, public readership" (275). His warnings about adultery here are not particular but general. Marriage, as Gower sees it, is a social good, the equivalent of Chartier's "l'affection publique." [MPK. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor McCabe, T. Matthew N. Published McCabe, T. Matthew N. "'Al université de tout le monde': Public Poetry, English and International." In John Gower in England and Iberia: Manuscripts, Influences, Reception. Ed. Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and R. F. Yeager. Publications of the John Gower Society X. (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2014). Pp. 261-78. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Al université de tout le monde": Public Poetry, English and International. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Ladd addresses what he sees as Gower's shift in CA from the overt estates satire of his earlier works into a more general critique of humankind's susceptibility to "the sins of materialism and avarice" by exploring examples in numerous tales to conclude that Gower demonstrates how economic interactions must be "part of how we all get along." [JGS. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Ladd, Roger A. Published Ladd, Roger A. "'Als wel the lord as the schepherde, He broghte hem alle in good accord': Harmonious Materialism in the Confessio Amantis." Accessus 5.2 (2019): n.p. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Als wel the lord as the schepherde, He broghte hem alle in good accord:: Harmonious Materialism in the "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review As do most assessments of Gower-as-Chorus in Shakespeare and George Wilkins' "Pericles," Dymkowski's essay focuses--justifiably--on the range of functions of the choric character in the drama rather than on Gower the man or his tale of Apollonius as a source of the play. She is largely concerned with the metatheatrical functions of the character in various modern productions of the play, with most extensive attention paid to two productions (1958 and 1989) in which the character was played by a black actor in an otherwise white cast. Exploring how "contemporary productions negotiate the challenge of making the character work for a modern audience" (248)--whose members are largely ignorant of Gower and his poetry--Dymkowski assesses how the Chorus generally helps to make the "audience aware they are watching a play" and "consciously engage with the nature of theatre itself" (246), before going on to assess individual productions. Prefatory to this line of argument and exposition, she usefully rehearses "what Gower might have meant to the play's original audience" (237), offering a clear, if conventional, review (pp. 237-41) of Jacobean familiarity with Gower and his works, claiming that the original audience of "Pericles," "even without direct knowledge of Gower's work, could be presumed to identify him as an important literary figure, as an ethical and wise man, as a patriot, and as a storyteller" (239). [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Dymkowski, Christine. Published In The Narrator, the Expositor, and the Prompter in European Medieval Theatre, ed. Philip Butterworth (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 235-64. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Ancient [and Modern] Gower": Presenting Shakespeare's "Pericles." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Chaucer, in Hanning's view, invented a "lapsarian poetics" for the "Canterbury Tales"--a poetics of shared humanity and subversion of literary authority--by "[r]esponding resistantly" to the "discourse of penance" as thundered down on the sinful estates of society in the poetic voice of Gower (31). In his first section, Hanning quotes the author-persona of "Troilus and Criseyde"--"Myn auctour shal I folwen, if I konne"--to argue that pre-CT, Chaucer experienced a sense of "anxiety and shortfall" (32) as an author "following" the greats of the past in both senses of the term, as he is late in time and possibly not measuring up to their example. Chaucer, however, announces his liberation from previous "worries about following" (33) through his "implicit rebuke" of Gower in the "Man of Law's Prologue," (38), which Hanning understands as a signal that Chaucer has "fallen away" from the older poet as a model even while "following" him in time. The Man of Law appropriates "an oft-told tale," a work of no authority, which he will perform with embellishments to compete with his fellow story-tellers in serving an agenda of far more "social eloquence" (30) than moral reform. At times, appropriation may shade over into counterfeiting, a moral danger addressed through the villainous deceptions portrayed in the "Man of Law's Tale" (37-38). To define what Chaucer was reacting against in the CT Tales, Hanning proceeds to outline the "penitential poetic" (40) as he sees it practiced by Gower, beginning with the sacrament of penance as mandated by the Fourth Lateran Council and explained to priest and penitent in manuals of confession that were produced to support it. The priest was instructed to inquire about the personal circumstances of the sinner, which led to discussion on the besetting sins of particular estates of society, including women, and to the genre of estates satire in literature. Especially post-Lateran IV, the father-confessor functioned as a preacher and a "quasi-prophetic voice" of authority (42). In the "Mirour de l'Omme" and "Vox Clamantis," Gower assumed the role of preacher and prophet by calling for the sacrament of penance and aiming his estates criticism from a position of superiority and detachment, as seen in the famous manuscript illumination of the poet standing somewhere in space and shooting an arrow at the world (46). Gowerian discourse dealt in "binaries" (45): edenic past versus corrupt present; sins versus their opposing virtues. For example, as prescribed in the VC, the solution to wrath gone out of control in the Rising of 1381 is that the English people will practice caritas (44). In his final section, Hanning produces a series of examples from the CT to support his view on Chaucer's poetic of resistance to the "penitential poetic" of Gower. Instead of a binary past and present, we have a personal "then and now" of April pilgrimage and remembering some time later (47). In the "General Prologue," the poet describes his fellow pilgrims, including their estate-based vices, with a "synthesis of ideology and personal response" and from the perspective of a boon companion, not a preacher making judgment in binaries (48-50). Even the Parson must establish his "bona fides" as a fellow pilgrim and receive permission to preach a "tale" on penance (51). The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner appropriate the discourse of confession in their Prologues as they flaunt their subversion of Pauline and Fourth Lateran norms on priestly (male) authority and the penitential mandate for consistency in thought, word, and deed (52-56). Their "lapsarian" confessions serve to push back against an authoritative social discourse that would "marginalize them and punish them for who they are" (57). The Wife proves herself to be a potent literary begetter as other storytellers respond to her--"follow" her--in socially eloquent competition. By his resistant "following" of Gower's poetic with its fierce estates satire, Chaucer transformed the decorous, all upper-class storytellers of Boccaccio's "Decameron" with "wonderful innovation" in the CT (58). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hanning, R. W. Published Hanning, R. W. "'And Countrefete the Speche of Every Man / He Koude, Whan He Sholde Telle a Tale': Toward a Lapsarian Poetics for The Canterbury Tales." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21 (1999): 29-58. Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Influence and Later Allusion Sources, Analogues, and Literary elations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "And Countrefete the Speche of Every Man / He Koude, Whan He Sholde Telle a Tale": Toward a Lapsarian Poetics for "The Canterbury Tales." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Delasanta finds many "errors about things literary" (292) in the Man of Law's Prologue and Tale, errors and emphases voiced by Chaucer's fictional lawyer in ways that undercut the character ironically. Among these, Delasanta cites "the famous denigration of Gower" that has been found in the Man of Law's references to incest in the tales of Canace and of Apollonius, often treated as Chaucer's jibes against Gower who tells both of these tales in the "Confessio Amantis." However, quoting from Gower's account of Antiochus's assault on his daughter in CA, Book 8, 288-300, Delasanta finds a "tone of prudish petulance" (292) in the Man of Law's horrified summary and identifies details that reflect his (not Chaucer's) "misremembering" of both of Gower's tales (293). This and a number of other incorrect or inappropriate uses of texts, Delasanta tells us, characterize the Man of Law as a "kind of ersatz Christian man: the housetop shouter, the sober brow who blesses and approves with a text, the Pharisee who thanks God that he is not as other men, the whited sepulchre" (309-10).] [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Delasanta, Rodney. Published Delasanta, Rodney. "'And of Great Reverence': Chaucer's Man of Law." Chaucer Review 5, no. 4 (1971): 288-310. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "And of Great Reverence": Chaucer's Man of Law. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Kamayabee's study re-examines "Middle English animal fables as teaching vehicles. For each fable, four governing pedagogical questions are raised and certain suggestions proposed. First, what lesson(s) does the fable teach? Does it encourage a virtue or warn against a vice? Second, who is the teacher: the poet, the narrator, or the anthropomorph? Third, to whom the lesson is addressed? Though it is often next to impossible to identify the historical audience of the fable, the imagined audience of the poet is often suggested. Fourth, how the lesson is offered? Surprise, reward, and punishment are among the most frequent didactic strategies that fables employ. 'The Introduction' establishes the background of the genre and the related traditions as well as their historical applications. Fables served as a convenient tool to teach grammar, rhetoric, and translation both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. They were also used in sermons for purposes of edification. 'Chapter II' discusses Henryson's use of fable as a vehicle of social criticism. 'Chapter III' discusses Chaucer's NPT and ManT and the manipulation of the genre in the greater picture of 'Canterbury Tales.' The use and abuse of language are the main issue of Chaucerian fables. 'Chapter IV' discusses Gower's 'Phebus and Cornide' and 'Adrian and Bardus,' which expound lessons to be learned from silence and justice. 'Chapter V' discusses Langland's 'Belling the Cat' and its political implications. 'Chapter VI' discusses Lydgate's 'Isopes Fabules', 'Churl,' and 'Debate,' that teach not only practical wisdom, but also nationalism and integrity. 'Chapter VII' discusses 'The Owl and the Nightingale' as an animal fable with its emphasis on justice, honesty, and above all on winning. In their different ways, medieval English animal fables teach their prospective audiences not only what to think, but more urgently how to think." Author/Editor Author/Editor Kamyabee, Mohammad Hadi. Published Kamyabee, Mohammad Hadi. "And out of fables gret wysdom men may take": Middle English Animal Fables as Vehicles of Moral Instruction. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Toronto, 1997. Dissertation Abstracts International A59.06. Freely available at https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/items/0fee8a77-d2c0-403f-829a-91c046d1cb35. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "And out of fables gret wysdom men may take": Middle English Animal Fables as Vehicles of Moral Instruction. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "My thesis considers English literary representations of two notorious classical women, Helen of Troy and Medea, from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. My primary focus is on the ways in which male authors in the period deal with the troubling spectres of the women's very different powers: Helen's alarming and captivating sexuality, Medea's magical abilities and unrestrained violence. First tracing how their power is represented in classical and late antique Greek and Latin texts, I then assess how their stories enter the English literary imagination. My project considers both longer renderings of their stories (Gower's Confessio Amantis, Lydgate's Troy Book, Heywood's Ages) and also the brief references to both women that recur time and again in the works of authors including Chaucer, Hoccleve, Gascoigne, Turberville and Greene. My research spans genres and media, considering the various uses the women are put to (didactic, cautionary, tragic, occasionally comic) in history, prose, poetry and drama, as well as in direct translation of classical works. Very often, authors use Helen and/or Medea ironically, in a way that demands a close familiarity with their classical incarnations (particularly, perhaps, with Ovid). Often paired as well as treated separately, Helen and Medea are used across the period to exemplify the unhappy effects of love, the dangerous effects of passion, and perhaps most frequently, the peculiar dangers women pose to men. Though their literary incarnations have often been considered separately by critics, by handling them together my research considers the way authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, Gascoigne and Turberville choose their classical exemplars very carefully, how two apparently quite different notorious women may be turned to the same ends, used to caution both men and women. Taking their power, and concerted male efforts to undermine it, as its overarching theme, the thesis considers Helen and Medea in relation to medieval and Renaissance theories of translation, to instructional, didactic or cautionary literature, to Christianity, to political and religious upheaval, and most significantly, in relation to the male establishment of the period." Author/Editor Author/Editor Heavey., Katherine Published Heavey, Katherine. "as meeke as medea, as honest as hellen": English Literary Representations of Two Troublesome Classical Women, c1160-1650. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Durham, 2008. 413 pp. Dissertation Abstracts International C71.06. Abstract accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Fully accessible (in 2 downloads) at https://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2930/. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "as meeke as medea, as honest as hellen": English Literary Representations of Two Troublesome Classical Women, c1160-1650. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Stone's title hardly does justice, either to the wide ground his essay covers, or to the significant erudition underlying it. (Nor can a summary of this brevity account for so rich a ramble.) For Stone, "the negotiation of the [Western] Schism is one of, if not 'the,' major through line [sic] uniting Gower's 'oeuvre.' Likewise, we might wonder if Gower's views of kingship were a function of the church rather than the other way around" (243). He concentrates primarily on the CA and to a lesser degree, "In Praise of Peace," while occasionally glancing at the MO. His argument proceeds in three parts. In the first he discusses "Gower's most extended discussion of the Schism: the Confessio Prologue's account of the 'statu cleri'" (209-10)--the spiritual state of the clergy under the Avignon "antipape" Clement IV. In the second he connects "this discussion of the crisis to the last two tales of Book II: the 'Tale of Boniface' and the 'Tale of Constantine and Sylvester'" (210). These, he argues, show Gower's view of the Schism "as a crisis of representation, a question of institutional and personal bodies through which Gower explores the political theologies of the papal bodies at the centre of the crisis" (210). In the third, he argues that charity, "Gower's putative solution to the Schism" is "in fact . . . the root of the vices that caused the Schism" (210)--a position that erroneously suggests an awkward resemblance to Wyclif's views on ecclesiastical property and papal "dominium," as a comparison with the "Lollard Chronicle" demonstrates (210 and 235-7). Finally, in a section aptly named "Towards a Conclusion," Stone comments on Gower's "conciliar poetics" and empathy with constitutionalism, as evident in "In Praise of Peace." [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 38.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Stone, Zachary E. Published Stone, Zachary E.. "'Betwen tuo stoles': The Western Schism and the English Poetry of John Gower (1378-1417)." New Medieval Literatures 19 (2019): 205-43. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis In Praise of Peace Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Betwen tuo stoles": The Western Schism and the English Poetry of John Gower (1378-1417). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Olsen's book is an attempt to apply modern linguistic and structuralist techniques to the study of CA in order to heighten the modern reader's appreciation for Gower's "literary artistry." Each chapter takes a different approach to the work, and Olsen makes only a modest effort to link them. In chapter 1, "Reading the Confessio Amantis: The Analogue of Dante's Vita Nuova," she uses VN in an attempt to define the genre of Gower's poem. Both works use both the vernacular and Latin, and both prose and verse; each uses a similar comic protagonist, who must be distinguished from the author; each is about love; each uses an encounter with the god of love to explore the nature of religious love; each refers in some way to the "Book of Memory," etc. In each case, the similarity helps explain what modern readers might find peculiar about Gower's poem. Chapter 2, "The Grammar of the Confessio Amantis," uses "grammar" in the Todorovian sense, but instead of examining the structure of individual tales, Olsen discusses the CA as a whole, and investigates the uses of various sorts of "juncture" (the Latin epigrams, and the change from one speaker to another) to create "narremes" in the poem, taking most of her examples from Books 7 and 8. Chapter 3, "Puns and the Language of Poetry in the Confessio Amantis," is an expanded version of an essay that originally appeared in In Geardagum 7 (1986), 17-36 (see JGN 6, no. 2). A pun links two different meanings (one of which may be suggested by only a similarity rather than an identicality of form), each of which is somehow appropriate to the context. When the juxtaposition is unexpected the result is often merely humorous, but in the more meaningful examples, the fact of linkage (which might draw attention to contrast as well as similarity) is itself significant, and the very equation of the two meanings it itself meaningful to the poem. Chapter 4, "Linguistics and Literary Structure: Metonymy and the Confessio Amantis," extends the discussion to rhyming puns, "rime équivoque," or as it is more usually called, "rime riche." Olsen considers several different types of "rime équivoque," concentrating on "Apollonius of Tyre." Where others might see merely a play on the inherent paradoxes of language or a way of creating rhetorical effect or parallelism, Olsen emphasizes a semantic equivalence between the rhyming words that alludes to thematic associations created by the narrative itself. Chapter 5, "Type-Scenes and the Structure of Narrative: The Sea Voyages in the Tale of Appolinus," is a revised version of the paper first published in the 1987 festschrift for Milman Parry (see JGN 7, no. 2). Olsen shows how Gower adopted a paradigm that descends ultimately from Anglo-Saxon oral poetry in describing the eleven separate voyages of Apollonius, and how he inverts the usual pattern in the voyages of Thaise and Taliart. In chapter 6, "'Of Storial Thyng': The Relationship of the Tales of Gower and Chaucer Reconsidered," she dismisses the biographical speculation that marks so much of the discussion of the relation between the two poets. She discusses instead how they shared the same "metalinguistic consciousness," and how the works of each provide a context for the other, using as her examples their "pliant" treatment of heroines borrowed from classical writers. Where their artistry differs, she concludes, "it is basically a matter of taste" which poet's works one prefers (p. 98). This is obviously a difficult book to summarize, and also to assess. Though any effort to update the criticism of Gower is salutary, the application of critical techniques can also be performed mechanically, sometimes at the expense of a close reading of the text. In chapter 1, for instance, not everyone will be persuaded that the long list of similarities between CA and VN constitute the definition of a "genre." Nor will everyone accept all of the conclusions that Olsen reaches, for instance that the (very different) mixture of languages and forms in VN "reminds us that we need to read the Latin commentary in the Confessio as part of the work" (p. 7; compare the essay by Derek Pearsall, below) or that the comparison to VN really solves the problems posed by Gower's Prologue and Book 7. Similarly, Olsen's identification of the "narremes" in Book 8, while leading to interesting remarks on the relation between Apollonius and Amans, also leads her to dismiss the closing prayer as a "marginal incident" (p. 22); how many readers have insisted on the basis of content that it is central instead? Her discussions of theory are not always as helpful as they might be. In chapter 4, for instance, she establishes a linkage between the "conventional" and the "metonymic" and between the "rhetorical" and the "metaphorical" that is confusing if not completely arbitrary, to this reader at least. It doesn't help that many of the examples of "rime équivoque" that she discusses as "metonymic" are meaningful only because they reinforce a metaphorical sense of one of the words involved. Some of her insights (e.g. her observation that the virtues in Book 7 derive more from a courtly than from a theological tradition, pp. 28-31), are not dependent upon the method she is following, and others, such as her comparison of the denunciation of Venus and the problems posed by VN, chapter 25 (p. 10), are submerged among a mass of much less interesting observations. Whatever its limitations, there is much that is worth considering in this volume. It is also worth pointing out that this is the first book-length critical study of Gower by a single author to appear since 1978, and only the fourth such study devoted to the Confessio Amantis alone, ever. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey Published Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey. ""Betwene Ernest and Game": The Literary Artistry of the Confessio Amantis." American University Studies, Series IV: English Language and Literature, 110 . New York: Peter Lang, 1990 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Betwene Ernest and Game": The Literary Artistry of the Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Peter Lang, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor McAlpine, Monica E. Published McAlpine, Monica E. "'Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters': A Paradigm from Ecclesiastes in Gower's 'Apollonius of Tyre'." In Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Pp. 225-35. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues and Literary Relations Review McAlpine suggests that Gower's "Tale of Apollonius of Tyre" may have been influenced or inspired by Ecclesiastes 11.1, leaving the suggestion unconfirmed, but using it to guide her intense, even fervent, appreciation of the character of Apollonius as a figure of "goodness and wisdom from the start" (229). She argues that the events of the tale--reinforced by the diction and imagery of gift-giving--"introduce, validate by experience, and authoritatively confirm the virtues with which the hero confronts his adventures" (225). The liberality of Apollonius's gift-giving is essential to his character, McAlpine tells is, a virtue she aligns with Bonaventure's commentary on Ecclesiastes 11.1 and with Apollonius's own agency in accepting fortune (eventually) and submitting to divine providence, concerns McAlpine also observes in Bonaventure's commentary. Fundamental to McAlpine's argument is the wheat that Apollonius gives freely to the citizens of Tharsis which she reads as the "bread" of Ecclesiastes, as its "waters" are the hero's recurrent adventures by sea. McAlpine extends the symbolic value of the gift of bread to the burial at sea of Apollonius's wife, through which his daughter, Thaise, also becomes a gift, along with "other gifts" in the tale (228). Apollonius's final gifts, his sacrificial offerings to Diana in her temple in Ephesus, McAlpine tells us, completes "the depiction of Apollonius's virtues" (232), and leads to the recognition scene between husband and wife, brought about, not only by the seas of fortune and by Apollonius's "family trait of disciplined management of one's suffering," but also by the "intervention" of his "dream of divine origin"--fortune, agency, and Providence combined. These interconnections in this final tale of the "Confessio Amantis," McAlpine concludes, respond to similar concerns in the Prologue of the poem and indicate the "many-sidedness of Gower's thinking for which "Ecclesiastes could have been a rich resource" (233). [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters": A Paradigm from Ecclesiastes in Gower's "Apollonius of Tyre." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In a section on Shakespeare's "Pericles," this article has extended analysis of Gower's reception in early modern English print and drama, with little on the CA per se. Gieske refrains from enumerating Shakespeare's "direct debts" to Chaucer and Gower at the verbal level, focusing rather on the "structural and narratological . . . the ways Shakespeare's post-1600 plays react to medieval antecedents as they experiment with alternative principles of construction" (85). His approach engages not only with the medieval sources, but with "Renaissance" Chaucer and Gower as Shakespeare would have known them in print (85, 95). Three plays are chosen for analysis: "Troilus and Cressida," the "kaledeidoscopic . . . chaotically structured" "Pericles" (86, 87), and "The Two Noble Kinsmen." The "capaciousness" of "Pericles" is prefigured in Robert Greene's "Vision" of 1592, where the sleeping poet is visited from beyond the grave by Chaucer and Gower. The "merry"-appearing Chaucer speaks for literature valued as "solaas," while the stern, Cato-like Gower makes the case for moral "sentence," with Gower preferred by the dreamer (96, 97). Both "ancient" poets defend their perspective by producing a sample poem, with an "adaptation" of the Confessio's "Apollonius narrative" voiced by Gower (101). A slightly different, equally prestigious "Renaissance Gower" is found in the Preface to Berthelette's 1532 edition of the CA, where Berthelette promotes the poem as "pleasant" and "easy," but also having "great auctorite perswadynge unto vertue" (99-100). Shakespeare's Gower "diverges" from the "dour moralist" of Greene's "Vision" (100), but more importantly, Shakespeare uses the "cultural capital" (99) of Gower's early modern reputation to authorize an experimental new dramatic genre prefigured in The Tale of Apollonius. The playwright "redeploy[ed] . . . vast ranges of time and space . . . [blending] the resources of capacious medieval narrative" with contemporary stage presentation (101,102). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Gieskes, Edward. Published Renaissance Papers 2009, ed. Christopher Cobb (Rochester, NY: Camden House/Boydell & Brewer, 2009), pp. 85-109. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Chaucer of All Admired the Story Gives": Shakespeare, Medieval Narrative, and Generic Innovation. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Smallwood cites some dozen examples of brief digressions in the tales in CA in contrast to the longer, more substantial digressions that occur near the beginnings of several tales by Chaucer (pp. 440- 41). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 7.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Smallwood, T.M. Published Smallwood, T.M.. ""Chaucer's Distinctive Digressions."." Studies in Philology 82 (1985), pp. 437-49. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Chaucer's Distinctive Digressions." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review The obscure work "Chaucer's Ghoast" (full title: "Chaucer's Ghoast. Or, A Piece of Antiquity. Containing twelve pleasant Fables of Ovid penn'd after the ancient manner of writing in England Which makes them prove Mock-Poems to the present Poetry. With the History of Prince Corniger, and his Champion Sir Crucifrag that run a tilt likewise at the present Historiographers. By a Lover of Antiquity"), printed in 1672, contains twelve poems: eleven free-standing and the twelfth in a short prose piece. Of these, none are by Ovid nor by Chaucer, although all are rewritten to resemble Chaucer's style. In fact, eleven are by taken from the "Confessio Amantis," Prologue-Book V. [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Joshua, Essaka. Published Joshua, Essaka. "'Chaucer's Ghoast' and Gower's 'Confessio Amantis.'" Notes and Queries 44 [242] (1997): 458-59. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Chaucer's Ghoast"' and Gower's "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Surveys criticism of CB, discusses its subject matter as "generally conventional," and analyzes its "formal excellence" and unity (158) as a matter of "concantenation" of "topics, moods, associations, imagery, key words of phrases, allusions, sources, and various metrical devices" (163). Reads the individual ballades seriatim to show how they deal with "three kinds of love" (conjugal, courtly, and divine; 164), and constitute a "ballade sequence" that "has no end but a circular completeness and a peculiar unity" (179) reminiscent of the Middle English "Pearl" and some of "The Harley Lyrics." [MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor Itô, Masayoshi. Published Itô, Masayoshi. "'Cinkante Balades': A Garland for a New King." In Itô's "John Gower, The Medieval Poet" (Tokyo: Shinozaki Shorin, 1976), pp. 156-80. Gower Subject Cinkante Balades Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Cinkante Balades": A Garland for a New King. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Primarily a study of Chaucer's "Legend of Good Women," but notes that it and CA have much in common, including both being "quasi-parodies" of religious literature. [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Garrett, Robert M Published Garrett, Robert M. "'Cleopatra the Martyr' and Her Sisters." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 22 (1923): 64-74. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Cleopatra the Martyr" and Her Sisters. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1923 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Ito's is a prose translation of the complete "Confessio Amantis," using Macaulay's edition. It is extensively annotated: approximately a third of the volume is devoted to explanatory notes, paying special attention to the needs of those Japanese readers and scholars whose knowledge of the history and socio-cultural norms of the European Middle Ages might require furbishing. It also contains a bibliography of relevant primary and secondary sources.[ RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Ito, Masayoshi, trans. Published Ito, Masayoshi, trans. John Gower: "Confessio Amantis," A Translation into Modern Japanese. (Tokyo: Shinozaki Shorin, 1978); 2nd ed. (Tokyo, 1988). Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Confessio Amantis," A Translation into Modern Japanese. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 1988 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Stoyanoff's admonition to teach fewer texts and teach them more deeply is well-taken, and he describes his experiences with teaching Gower's "Tale of Virgil's Mirror" from Book V of the "Confessio Amantis" in order to accomplish depth of analysis by using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), drawn from the sociological approach of Bruno Latour and others. The description derives from Stoyanoff's undergraduate course designed for majors, and it summarizes student discussions of the animate and inanimate actors in the tale, their networks, and their resulting collectives. Brief as it is, Stoyanoff's essay encourages slow, close reading, but the concepts and terms from ANT are not explained at length, so that instructors unfamiliar with ANT will do well to read as a companion essay his earlier, more theoretical study, "Covetousness in Book 5 of "Confessio Amantis": A Medieval Precursor to Neoliberalism," Accessus 4.2 (2018): Article 2. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Stoyanoff, Jeffrey G. Published Stoyanoff, Jeffrey G. "Confessio Amantis" in the Undergraduate Classroom: Using Actor-Network Theory to Teach Less Text More." Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 30.1 (2023): 45-52. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Confessio Amantis" in the Undergraduate Classroom: Using Actor-Network Theory to Teach Less Text More. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Byrd's dissertation presents a complete prose translation of the "Confessio Amantis" into Modern English, using Macaulay's edition as its base text. In doing so, it does not include translations of the earlier, Ricardian, versions of the poem, except for the dedication to Richard in the Prologue (which is covered in the introduction). The introduction gives no indication of the intended purpose or audience for the translation, though it would clearly serve well in the classroom. While each book is translated in its own chapter, and section headings generally follow Macaulay, no line numbers are given within each book, making it difficult to cross-reference with the ME original. The translation itself is quite readable, and literal, though it cannot therefore reflect much of Gower's complexity of diction. For example, In Book 1, the narrator states "loves lawe is out of reule" (1.18). Byrd translates as "love's law is beyond regulation," which, while it certainly reflects the valence of authority in the original, it nevertheless lacks the implication that love cannot also be measured, which reflects the initial invocation of the world's ever shifting scales, or balances. As Byrd points out in the Introduction, the "Middle English Dictionary" had only been completed partially through G at the time of writing, and some choices would have benefitted from that resource. In the Prologue, for example, during the narrator's discussion of the ills of the world being caused my humanity, he states "Therwhile himself stant out of here / The remenant wol noght acorde" (Prol.962-3). Byrd translates as "for while man himself remains out of joint, other things will not be in harmony" (17). While "out of joint" reflects the general notion here, the MED suggests "out of order," or "unhinged," as more literal. The Introduction and explanatory notes are minimal, running eight pages and 17-30 notes per book, respectively. [BWG. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Byrd, David Gatlin, trans. Published Byrd, David Gatlin, trans. "'Confessio Amantis': A Modern Prose Translation." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of South Carolina, 1965. Dissertation Abstracts International 28.2. Full text available at ProQuest. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Language and Word Studie Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Confessio Amantis": A Modern Prose Translation. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "John Gower's assertion that the tales in the 'Confessio Amantis' are 'ensamples' of particular vices or virtues has variously been challenged, ignored, or misinterpreted by critics seeking to explain the relation of the tales to the confessional framework of the poem. However, an analysis of the changes that Gower made in the sources of fifteen tales from Books I and II of the 'Confessio' reveals that he consistently altered his sources in order to transform them into exempla of the Sins. But beyond adapting his source material as illustrations of vices and virtues, Gower's transformations are aimed at integrating the tales more subtly into the whole movement of the poem. This final transformation of his sources into a functioning part of the larger fiction marks the highpoint of Gower's art, for here he has not only transformed his sources, but he has also transformed the idea of 'ensamples' from isolated tales into integral parts of a complex work of art." [eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Shaw, Judith Davis. Published Dissertation Abstracts International 38 (1978): 6709A. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Confessio Amantis": Gower's Art in Transforming His Sources into Exempla of the Seven Deadly Sins Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review This essay could be read profitably as a companion-piece to Bennett's earlier work on the latter years of Richard II's kingship ("John Gower, Squire of Kent, the Peasants' Revolt, and the 'Visio Anglie'," Chaucer Review 2018; "Gower, Richard II, and Henry IV," "Historians on Gower" 2019), with his monograph "Richard II and the Revolution of 1399" (1999) as general background; and see Bennett, "Shades of Gower: Latin Texts and Social Contexts" (2022). Here, using chronicle accounts extensively, Bennett develops a positive portrait of Cobham's role from the advent of the crisis, arguing for the latter's justified distrust of Richard, and attributes to a warm relationship with Cobham Gower's detailed knowledge of events that subsequently produced his negative views of the king. Perhaps most significant for Gower scholars is Bennett's reading of the "Cronica Tripertita" as initially three separate poems later combined into one, each section reflecting a different stage in Gower's evolving attitude toward Richard. The first poem was composed "almost certainly . . . close to the events it described"--i.e., 1387-88 (44); the second later in 1388-89 (44-45); and the third in September 1397, when "Gower took up his 'weeping pen' to "report Gloucester's murder, Arundel's execution, and Warwick's banishment" (50). These, variously revised, became the CrT as we know it after the accession of Henry IV, in 1399. Bennett also reads as parallel these shifts in the CrT and the development of the Ricardian/Henrician versions of the "Confessio Amantis" (48-49). N.B.: p. 49, fn. 79, read: "BL, Cotton Ch. IV.27," not "Harl." [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bennett, Michael. Published Bennett, Michael. "'Defenders of truth': Lord Cobham, John Gower, and the Political Crisis of 1387-88." In Jessica A. Lutkin and J.S. Hamilton, eds. Creativity, Contradictions, and Commemoration in the Reign of Richard II: Essays in Honour of Nigel Saul. Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 2022. Pp. 35-52. Gower Subject Cronica Tripertita Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Defenders of truth": Lord Cobham, John Gower, and the Political Crisis of 1387-88. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Studies the tradition of Medea "as it is manifested in English and French Literatures [sic] from approximately 1160 to 1477 together with a discussion of Medea's classical background and appearance in a number of important medieval Latin and Italian texts . . . . The focus of my discussion is on the presentation of Medea in late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth century English literature where her story is represented by three histories of Troy . . . as well as Chaucer, in the 'Legend of Good Women,' and Gower, in the 'Confessio Amantis'." Author/Editor Author/Editor McDonald, N. F. Published McDonald, N. F. "'Diverse folk diversely they seyde': A Study of the Figure of Medea in Medieval Literature." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Oxford, 1994. Index to Theses, with Abstracts: Accepted for Higher Degrees by the Universities of Great Britain and Ireland 45.5 (1996), no. 12132. Abstract accessible via Proquest Dissertations & Theses. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Diverse folk diversely they seyde": A Study of the Figure of Medea in Medieval Literature. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Sobecki's essay addresses three major claims: 1) that the "Trentham Manuscript" (now properly London, British Library MS Additional 59495), commonly thought to have been a gift to Henry IV, instead remained very likely in Gower's possession until his death, and thereafter in St. Mary Overeys Priory until the Priory's surrender ca. 1541, during the Dissolution; 2) that "In Praise of Peace" was begun as a poem for Richard II supporting peace with France, and finished as a poem for Henry, urging the same--a purpose that governed the inclusion of the Traitié pour les amantz marietz balades and Ecce patet tensus as well, all of which concern "marriage," but not of people, rather of nations; 3) that the final two Latin poems ("Ecce patet tensus" and "Henrici quarti primus," so titled in Sobecki's article, elsewhere and more commonly "Quicquid homo scribat," or occasionally In fine"), copied in a hand identified by Malcolm Parkes as "Scribe 10," are in fact the work of Gower himself, as therefore is also the latter portion of BL MS Cotton Tiberius A.IV, which exhibits the same hand. [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 36.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Sobecki, Sebastian. Published Sobecki, Sebastian. "'Ecce patet tensus': The Trentham Manuscript, 'In Praise of Peace,' and John Gower's Autograph Hand." Speculum 90 (2015): 925-59. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies In Praise of Peace Minor Latin Poetry Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Ecce patet tensus": The Trentham Manuscript, "In Praise of Peace," and John Gower's Autograph Hand. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Hastings' abstract: "This dissertation explores the ways in which Old and Middle English poets made use of the poetic corpus of the Roman Augustan Age poet Horace (Quintus Flaccus Horatius) and the medieval commentary tradition that accrued around it. It considers especially the Late Antique commentaries of Porphyry and PseudoAcro as well as the scholia transmitted in Bern MS Bernensis 363 and Paris, BnF MS Latin 17897. The Old English elegies in the Exeter Book (Exeter Cathedral MS 3501) are the subject of the second chapter. Subsequent chapters focus on William Langland's 'Piers Plowman,' John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis,' and Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' (with especial emphasis on Fragments VIII and IX)." In chapter four, Hastings assesses "what role the Horatian tradition may have played in the moral counsel Gower sought to provide to his king through the 'Confessio Amantis'." He comments on two spurious attributions to Horace of material in Gower's Latin commentary, followed by close analysis of four passages in CA where, Hastings argues, Gower "uses the Horatian tradition to inflect the tone and timbre of his other source material to admonish Richard II on the proper exercise of virtue. Specifically, "These subtle criticisms on ethical conduct and procreative sexuality provide counterweights to two of the criticisms most commonly laid against the Ricardian court: a culture whose excesses bordered upon the effete and a king whose relationship with Robert de Vere caused anxiety 'vis-à-vis' dynastic succession" (196). [MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hastings, Justin A. Published Hastings, Justin A. "Englishing" Horace: The Influence of the Horatian Tradition on Old and Middle English Poetry. Ph.D. Dissertation. Loyola University, 2016. vi, 287 pp. Dissertation Abstracts International A78.07(E). Fully accessible ProQuest Theses & Dissertations Global and at https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2283/. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Englishing" Horace: The Influence of the Horatian Tradition on Old and Middle English Poetry. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "The difficulties generated by appeals to "kynde" in medieval English literature are usually attributed to a supposed equivocalness at the heart of medieval conceptions of 'natura.' Medieval rhetoric allows, however, for an equivocation that, as a holding together of two distinct ideas under one name, is a method of knowing truth instead of a logical blunder. The word 'natura,' accordingly, balances two conceptions of nature under one term to reveal man's essential condition as a creature caught between the nature inherited from his creation in God's image and the nature inherited from the Fall. This 'equivocation of kynde' holds two messages. Most obviously, the individual Christian must not confuse the inclinations of his fallen nature with the pull of his true essence. One's cares to identify the sense in which one is using the term and to attempt to restore "nature" are unerring measures of one's spiritual condition. Nature's equivocation also paradoxically functions to insist on the difficulty of such a restoration. The movement to break down the separation of man's fallen 'kynde' from its divine heritage is likely, in a fallen world, to be fraught with disasters of his own making. This ability of the concept of 'kynde. to unfold a central paradox of medieval Christianity provides poets with two persistent motifs and narrative strategies. First, medieval writers constantly create characters who separate the natural inclinations from the desire to return to the divine. The audience is expected to correct such abuses. Secondly, the equivocation's insistence on the difficulty of returning to one's proper nature encourages medieval poets to construct situations that deliberately mislead the audience into accepting an improper view of the natural. Should such a misleading occur, the audience is forced to acknowledge its own complicity in the fallen world. After examining the manner in which Augustine establishes 'natura' as an equivocal concept and the consistent way the later middle ages reflect his doctrine, my essay uses Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' and Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' as examples of the fruitful ways that medieval artists used the equivocation of 'kynde' to structure their poems." [eJGN 39.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hiscoe, David Winthrop. Published Hiscoe, David Winthrop. "'Equivocations of Kynde': The Medieval Tradition of Nature and Its Use in Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' and Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'." Ph.D. Diss. Duke University 1983. DAI 44(5): 1447A-1448A. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Equivocations of Kynde": The Medieval Tradition of Nature and Its Use in Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" and Gower's "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Diller, Hans-Jürgen. Published Diller, Hans-Jürgen. "'For Engelondes sake': Richard II and Henry of Lancaster as Intended Readers of Gower's 'Confessio Amantis.'" In Ulrich Broich, Theo Stemmler, and Gerd Stratmann, eds. Functions of Literature: Essays Presented to Erwin Wolff on His Sixtieth Birthday. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984. Pp. 39-53. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Biography of Gower Review Diller here discusses the literary "functions" of the Ricardian and Lancastrian recensions of Gower's "Confessio Amantis." His discussion is complicated--framed by a brief, weighty theorization of literary functions, both overt and covert--but after a close reading of the altered lines Diller briskly summarizes what he believes to be the impact of the changes Gower made to the Prologue of his poem: "The revision of only 69 lines (out of a total of 33,444) has brought about an astonishing change in the explicit functions of CA: amusement has been replaced by instruction and exhortation; praise of the monarch, by a criticism of society and the hope for one who may reform it; the desire for personal advancement, by a concern for common good. In short, a 'bok for king Richardes sake' (Pr. 24*) has been really turned into a 'bok for Engelondes sake' (Pr. 24)" (45). Turning to Gower's replacement of Book VIII, 2941*-3114* with 2941-3172, Diller asserts that "Gower felt that he could not alter the frame [of CA] without altering the ending" (46) and, again closely reading changes in details, says that, if we can hazard "[r]educing Gower to a simplifying formula [in the revised version], we may say that the king has to be virtuous, while the nobles have to be virtuous and strong," (48), with Henry as an apt "representative" of the latter. Further, Gower changed the "position of earthly love," Diller tells us: "toleration" of happy love . . ."--a complimentary reference to Richard and his queen" in the first version--has been eliminated and such love "is now only a force that drives men into error" (49), an "inconsistency" with the status of love throughout the poem, Diller suggests, that Gower "accepted . . . [as] necessary on account of the new Epilogue." Somewhat more tentatively, Diller accounts for the elimination of Venus's reference to Chaucer in the revision, not because of any "estrangement" (50) between Gower and Chaucer, but because Gower "may have hoped to earn favours which so far had been reserved for the younger poet" but did not wish to "hint at a possible reward . . . from Henry [though he soon received one] as openly as he had done in his dedication to the king." "Mere lucre," Diller maintains, "had little attraction" for the prosperous Gower, and an "outward sign of recognition" would probably have been sufficient for Gower since his "subsequent attitude to Henry indicates as much" (51). Much of this is inferential, as Diller acknowledges when he observes that it is "safer" for him attend to the "values articulated in [Gower's] poetry" than to his "personal ambition" (52)--two different levels of function in Diller's theoretical scheme. With this shift in focus, and a nod to the Merciless Parliament, Diller rather swiftly concludes his essay by suggesting that Richard may not have approved of Gower's views on constraint of royal power, and that it was a "skilful move" for Gower to turn to Henry as "another high-ranking member of the royal family" who might well be willing to sanction these views as a "legitimation of political practices which have become current without being accepted as legitimate" (53). [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "For Engelondes sake": Richard II and Henry of Lancaster as Intended Readers of Gower's "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Sarah L. Higley's essay explains the process by which she recreated three of Gower's tales from the "Confessio Amantis" ("The Travelers and the Angel," "Canace and Machaire," and "Florent") in Second Life, an online virtual world that uses avatars and allows users, within certain limits, to create space and to express their characters' selves through art, accessories, etc. Higley makes the argument that this project engages the very medieval urge of retelling and compiling: "I argue that the medieval collaboration of author, scribe, illuminator, and reader, along with the penchant for gathering stories and adapting them, is reflected by filming in a multiply-occupied virtual world like Second Life that exhibits its users' recyclable creations. The artistic spaces I find there provide analogues not only for the spaces through which Gower's characters wander, but also for the symbolic iconography that informs Gower's work" (9-10). In great detail, Higley explains to readers the inner workings of Second Life and machinima, noting especially its strengths of collaboration and community. She even notes that the limitations of the medium--"its limited range of animations and facial expressions" (16)--actually help her to "resemble the multi-media qualities of a medieval illuminated manuscript" (16). Noting the specific difficulties presented in rendering Gower's Middle English in the virtual world, Higley then explains and reflects upon her process of recreating each of the three tales in Second Life. She concludes of her machinima, "These are not virtual voices. They speak across boundaries. Gower speaks to us across time, just as Ovid and other ancients spoke to Gower. Making this machinima was my attempt to speak for Gower, not just to Gower scholars but to viewers who could become familiar with his work and the vitality of Middle English language and literature" (56). [JGS. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Higley, Sarah L. Published Higley, Sarah L. "'For it Acordeth Noght to Kinde': Remediating Gower's Confessio Amantis in Machinima." Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media 2.1 (2015): n.p. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "For it Acordeth Noght to Kinde": Remediating Gower's "Confessio Amantis" in Machinima. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review This article provides a careful examination of the Tale of Constance from Book 2 of the "Confessio Amantis" in terms of the shifts in attitudes toward crusading in the later fourteenth century. He leads with reference to the 1396 Battle of Nicopolis (a disaster for the European Christians), and goes from there to suggest that Gower would have been somewhat suspicious of the crusading impulse, as part of the "lawe positif" he critiques in the Prologue to the CA. When Brown brings his attention to the Tale of Constance, he examines its sources: the folkloric trope of the "calumniated queen," and Nicholas Trivet's Anglo-Norman "Chronicle." In particular, though Brown notes that Gower has to squeeze the story a bit to fit it into the book on Envy, most of his analysis will focus on Gower's changes to the details of Trivet's version of the story. He notes in particular that Gower leaves out some of the details of the treaty between Tiberius and the Sultan (the ceding of Jerusalem to the Christians), and the slaughter in revenge of "11,000 infidels" (183). He argues that for Gower had to eliminate these details because they reinforce the dangerous fantasy of the crusade, which was finding its last gasp in the fourteenth century. Brown goes on to cite scholars' analyses of Trivet's contributions to the story, as a "recollection of Christian glories from the early crusade era" (185). If, then, Trivet's story is a "Christian fantasy of the impossible Crusade" (186), for Gower, the cuts respond to the "volatile political climate and dangerous propaganda in England during the death throes of the Crusade era," especially in "response to Philipe of Mézières" (187). He concludes that this shows that Gower was ahead of many of his contemporaries in seeing that it was time for the crusades to be over. Brown's argument overall makes sense, at least for this story, and he makes a good case that Gower's work here contrasts with some of his contemporaries. He does not, however, tie this particular issue to Gower's broader preoccupation with war and peace across his oeuvre. [RAL. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Brown, Harry J. Published In The Crusades: Other Experiences, Alternate Perspectives: Selected Proceedings from the 32nd Annual CEMERS Conference, ed. Khalil I. Semaan (Binghamton, NY: Global Academic, 2003), pp. 179-91. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "For Worldes Good." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Brown sees the battle of Nicopolis in 1396, after which "almost 20,000 crusaders" were beheaded "by the Ottomans" and "many more were enslaved," as the termination of "the Crusade era and European chivalry" (179). Gower, he argues, "was probably among those who had known enough to see the massacre coming" (179) because "he had been present when Philipe [de Mézières . . . presented his "Epistre" to King Richard urging an alliance with Charles [VI of France] and the Avignon pope against the much stronger Ottomans on the other side of the world" (179-80). In Brown's view, the Prologue to the CA, ll. 240-49 represent "at least one dissenting murmur in the English court" against taking up the crusade that ended at Nicopolis (181). Gower's opposition to the 1396 effort is the more apparent in alterations he made to Trivet's original narrative that provided the source for the "Tale of Constance." Brown finds significant Gower's omission of Tiberius' agreement with the sultan and the detail of 11,000 Saracens slaughtered: for Gower, these "would have represented the kind of pro-Crusade rhetoric being spread through England and all of Europe by reactionary propagandists like Philipe of Mézières" (184). Trivet's original narrative, Brown argues, in the end of which "the West is fully converted, Christendom is united, and the East is crushed under the avenging might of Rome," so that "all of [Pope] Urban's dreams [would] have been realized" (186), was for Gower too much like the propaganda he both feared and rejected. Hence "Gower suppresses this rhetoric. 'Moral Gower' warns against pursuing an ideology that at the close of the fourteenth century was not only obsolete, but potentially suicidal" (188). Brown concludes that "at the very least, the example of Gower's 'Tale of Constance' suggests that we reconsider such canonical medieval poets not simply as artists composing in the protective isolation of Church and court, but as active participants embroiled in a sometimes desperate ideological struggle" (188). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 37.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Brwon, Harry J. Published Brown, Harry J. "'For Worldes Good': John Gower's 'Tale of Constance' and the End of the Crusades." In The Crusades: Other Experiences, Alternate Perspectives: Selected Proceedings from the 32nd Annual CEMERS Conference, ed. Khalil I. Semaan (Binghamton, NY: Global Academic Publishing, 2003), pp. 179-89. ISBN 9781586842512. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "For Worldes Good": John Gower's "Tale of Constance" and the End of the Crusades. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Gingell, C. J.  Published Gingell, C. J.  "Gazing into the void": Apocalypse, Authority and Culture on the Margins of Medieval Society. Ph.D. Dissertation. The University of Wales College of Cardiff, 2004. Dissertation Abstracts International C70.37. Abstract available via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Mirour de l'Omme Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Review "The thesis examines ways in which . . . . apocalyptic feeling . . . . was one of the principal ways in which ordinary people responded to the crises of late fourteenth-century Europe, especially in England. The modern apocalyptic tradition is examined in the Introduction, looking at popular culture, such as TV, films and the Internet, whilst Chapter 1 reviews the medieval apocalyptic tradition and its equivalent means of expression – Mystery Plays, sermons, manuscript illustrations and lyrics. Chapter 2 examines 'Piers Plowman' as a text not only explicitly apocalyptic, but also explicitly fourteenth-century, grappling with many contemporary trends and traumas. Chapter 3 takes a similar approach to Gower's three major works, which have not previously been considered to be especially apocalyptic. The chapter also examines Gower's use of humour and satire, not just as didactic tools, but as further ways of reacting to crisis. The final two chapters detail the third form of response, that of seeking to take control of a threatening situation. These chapters review diverse activities such as alchemy and witchcraft, and look in more detail at those on the margins of society, often forced there by their lifestyle choices: in times of uncertainty and crisis the majority seeks to banish the unorthodox or unknowable in order to reaffirm its collective identity." Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Gazing into the void": Apocalypse, Authority and Culture on the Margins of Medieval Society. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Ker's chapter on Gower repeats his 1903 review article on Macaulay's edition, entitled "John Gower, Poet." Please refer to that entry for a full description. [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Ker, W. P Published Ker, W. P. ""Gower"." In Essays on Medieval Literature. Ed. Ker, W. P. London: Macmillan, 1905, pp. 101-134. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Gower" Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Macmillan, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1905 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review This brief article compares Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" with three Middle English analogues: Gower's "Tale of Florent" in the "Confessio Amantis," "The Marriage of Sir Gawayne," and "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell." In Gower's version, and the two other analogues, the central male character agrees to marry the loathly lady as a condition of her revealing the secret to him, and all three men--more or less happily--carry out their side of the bargain without disputing it. In Chaucer's version, the nameless knight accepts the lady's offer of help without prior knowledge that marriage to her will be the "quid pro quo." Once he has been saved, and she demands that he pay up, the knight denies ever consenting to the union and tries to argue his way out of it, but he is ultimately forced to marry her. The theme of coerced marriage is especially suited to the Wife of Bath as narrator, as she has experienced five marriages where verbal abuse and physical brutality were experienced on both sides. The Wife is unable to imagine marriage except as a contest "in which one spouse must forcefully struggle to dominate the other" (241). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Glasser, Marc. Published Glasser, Marc. "'He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde': The Forced Marriage in the 'Wife of Bath's Tale' and Its Middle English Analogues." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique /Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 85 (1984): 239-41. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde": The Forced Marriage in the "Wife of Bath's Tale" and Its Middle English Analogues. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review This essay focuses on one of the central differences between Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" and its Middle English analogues, including Gower's "Tale of Florent." Glasser points out that Chaucer's is the only version in which the knight is not fully aware that the ultimate price of the answer to the question will be marrying the old woman, and that this difference suggests the knight's marriage represents "forced consent" befitting the Wife of Bath's domineering character. The brevity of this essay reflects its cursory interrogation of the subject. The issue of consent (in marriage, sexual union, and elsewhere) is central to both Chaucer's and Gower's works, and this essay does not explore that issue, or attempt to define it historically, in any great detail. In characterizing the difference, the essay notes, "Only in Chaucer's version does the knight state in absolutely clear terms that he does not consent to marry the hag: 'Taak al my good, and lat my body go'" (241). But that statement is not dissent; rather it is a counteroffer in this contractual negotiation, and one that Florent also offers: "Florent behihte hire good ynowh / Of lond, of rente, of park, of plowh" (1.1555-1556). A stronger case for lack of consent in Chaucer's version might be made by exploring the fact that Chaucer notes the knight "Constreyned was": "he nedes moste hire wedde," (1071), since that line literally refers to being compelled or forced ("constreinen") into the agreement. The essay insightfully remarks that the Wife of Bath is unable to "envision a marriage unsullied by the dominance of her will," but while Chaucer's is the only version where marriage is not immediately understood as the price to be paid, it is not unique in the knight's resistance to that offer before consenting. [BWG. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Glasser, Marc. Published Glasser, Marc. "'He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde': The Forced Marriage in the Wife of Bath's Tale and Its Middle English Analogues." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 85.2 (1984): 239-41. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde": The Forced Marriage in the Wife of Bath's Tale and Its Middle English Analogues Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Relates Gower's VC, III, 1495, "redundant," to Wordsworth's use of "overflowing." No author given. [RFY1981]. Published "Hibernicus." "Overflowing with the Sound." Times Literary Supplement, 25 April, 1929, p. 338 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Vox Clamantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Hibernicus." "Overflowing with the Sound." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1929 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Bullón-Fernández's essay is another response to the previous essays in this issue of "Accessus." She begins by acknowledging the (then) recent Omicron variant of Covid at the end of 2021 that was thwarting the hope for the end of the pandemic. Thinking of the "fast-moving cycle of hope and despair" that was part and parcel of the pandemic, Bullón-Fernández asks whether we can find hope and healing in John Gower's work. She suggests, "The essays reveal that Gower's hope is not naïve and that the healing is not always or unambiguously successful; it is just 'ynowh.'" Bullón-Fernández then tracks the intersections of the work of Salisbury, McShane, Runstedler, and Bychowski, suggesting these essays advocate for poetry's ability to heal the community. She asserts that Rogers's and Grinnell's start from positions of doubt in the hope the CA expresses. Bullón-Fernández sees all six essays recognizing "the 'Confessio' does not offer easy answers or remedies to sickness." She turns to the end of the poem, offering a brief close reading to show Gower's recognition of the multiple afflictions of earthly love. She concludes, "A sense of peace and hope comes from accepting that the cure will likely make us feel just 'hol ynowh'." [JGS. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bullón-Fernández, María. Published Bullón-Fernández, María. "'Hol ynowh.'" Accessus 7, no. 1 (2022): n.p. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Hol ynowh." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Newlin is exclusively concerned with Gower the character in Shakespeare's "Pericles." "Pericles," he argues, is a kind of sequel to "The Merchant of Venice," with Gower's speeches offering "not only a manual of sorts" for reading both plays, but a "frame . . . for reading any" Shakespeare play (111). Newlin starts off by addressing the perennial view of a literary text as a box with an inside and an outside, a form and a meaning--or is it the other way around? As a basis for reading a text, this image lends itself to an endless succession of readings, each "itself a new text to be read . . . [never] finished"(109), with language itself exposed as "open-ended . . . aporetic" (114). In "The Merchant of Venice," Shakespeare addressed this "unceasing deconstruction" (111) through the Christian interpretive device of allegory by figuration, for example, by repeating the equation of Portia/Balthasar with the Old Testament figure of Daniel (120). Like caskets, women, and gold, textual "meaning" itself has a monetary value defined by the Christian patriarch, and all are objects of exchange (118). "Recalling "Merchant'"s many prefigurations . . . the central structural device that drives "Pericles" is its repetitions" (123). This device is not limited to the recurrences driving its tripartite plot, but includes verbal repetitions often ascribed to textual corruption, but more likely "genetic" and "intentional" (124, 125). Passages of bad writing, "weak text," may also be strategic in their "literary power" (122). It is the choric Gower, especially in his closing speech, who explains how a dubious ancient text may be read as "evermore" providing "new joy," with no final "ending," as author and new readers collaborate to make this "our play" (126). Thus, today, Shakespeare's text can be liberated from a "heterosexist" reading (217). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Newlin, James. Published In New Readings of The Merchant of Venice, ed. Horacio Sierra (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013), pp. 109-30. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "How Every Fool Can Play Upon the Word": Allegories of Reading in "The Merchant of Venice" and "Pericles." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Minnis contests assessments of Gower's Latin glosses to "Confessio Amantis" as dull and pedantic. He distinguishes between medieval textual glosses that merely clarify the grammar of a base text and others that comment on its sense or meaning. Some of Gower's glosses in CA "merely restate, and thereby emphasize [the poem's] lore" (60). Others, by contrast, "explain sense and sentence" (61). Gower's Latin glosses on Venus's retreat from Amans in Book VIII and on the Pygmalion story in Book IV, while typically "reductionist" (66), also complicate their vernacular narratives: concerning old age and concupiscence, in the first instance; and, in the second, the initially homosexual lovemaking of Iphis and Ianthe that is rendered heterosexual by Ianthe's transformation, during the exemplum introduced by Gower's retelling of Pygmalion. Throughout his Latin glosses to CA, Gower develops the sophisticated persona of an authority who resolves conflicting themes in his English poem, such as desire and reason.] [MPK. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Minnis, Alastair J. Published Minnis, Alastair J. "Inglorious Glosses?" In John Gower in England and Iberia: Manuscripts, Influences, Reception. Ed. Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and R. F. Yeager. Publications of the John Gower Society X. (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2014). Pp. 51-75. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Inglorious Glosses? Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Ker's review of Macaulay's scholarly edition is wholly laudatory and provides a general appreciation of Gower's achievement that echoes or expands on Macaulay. Ker acknowledges that Gower will always remain a "foil to Chaucer" (437), but he praises Gower for his poetic correctness, for his ease and lack of affectation (439). This courtly style, Ker argues, shows Gower's debt to French poetry, marked as it is by a simple eloquence, by an "ironical self-possession" and "urbanity" (442), and by "an understanding between the poet and his readers, a social sympathy" (445). One sees this in other English poetry, as in the Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess" or in "The Owl and the Nightingale." Chaucer, however, is on the whole more influenced by Italian verse and is willing to accept metrical irregularities. Nevertheless, both writers in their use of decasyllabic verse ignored the caesura after the fourth syllable, and so foreshadowed much of the best heroic poetry in English poetry (453). Ker concludes with a rather wilting overview of Gower's French and Latin works, and with a short biography. [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Ker, W. P Published Ker, W. P. ""John Gower, Poet"." Quarterly Review 197 (1903), pp. 437-458. Gower Subject In Praise of Peace Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Vox Clamantis Cinkante Balades Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz Confessio Amantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "John Gower, Poet" Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1903 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Brief biography; general assessment of works, literary talent, etc.; cites Gower's "unusual" dislike of warfare. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor N. A. Published Anonymous review. "John Gower." Times Literary Supplement, 18 August 1932. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Biography of Gower Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "John Gower." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1932 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review The discovery of the only manuscript with the Portuguese translation of the "Confessio Amantis," Cortijo notes, has helped clarify some questions that scholars had been posing about the reception of the poem in Iberia. The discovery of the manuscript shows, in Cortijo's view, that Gower's work had a wider diffusion and dissemination than previously envisioned. Equally consequential for evaluating the impact of the Gowerian text is the dating of the Portuguese manuscript, which confirms an early distribution in the CA in Iberia. For Cortijo, the relevance of this early date cannot be emphasized enough, as it coincides with the expansion of the sentimental novel, a genre that bears significant resemblances and points in common from a formal and thematic point of view. [AS-H. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio. Published Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio. "'La Confessio Amantis' en el debate del origen del sentimentalismo ibérico: un posible contexto de recepción." In Margarita Freixas, et al., eds. Actas del VIII Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval (Santander 22–26 septiembre, 1999) (Santander: Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval, 2000). Pp. 583-601. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "La Confessio Amantis" en el debate del origen del sentimentalismo ibérico: un posible contexto de recepción. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Weiskott's article isn't easily summarized, as it represents a kind of "magnum opus" on Gower's shortish (104 lines) Latin poem, "O deus immense," in order to argue strongly for a reassessment of its importance in the canon of Gower's works. In the process he covers the difficulties of dating its composition (sometime between 1398 and 1400); whether or not its subject was kings in general or Richard II exclusively (he goes back and forth, but more or less favors Richard: see pp. 221, 227, 246); Gower's quarrying of it (very sharply observed) to insert variously elsewhere (226-27); and its (justified) claim to belonging among the "public, monitory, prophetic, and enigmatic" (244) poems of the early years of the Lancastrian usurpation--"Richard the Redeless," and "Bede's Prophecy" in particular, the latter introduced here by Weiskott. He concludes: "Gower supposed that writing enigmatic, prophetic, monitory verses 'ad regem' on behalf of a recalcitrant, inarticulate public was a difficult, noble, and urgent political task, and he was not alone in so supposing. Gower had long harbored those views individually, dispersed throughout metaliterary and purple passages in his trilingual trilogy. In "O deus immense" Gower encapsulates the poet's task with unwonted concision and self-reflexive panache." [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Weiskott, Eric. Published Weiskott, Eric. "'Loquela gravis iuvat': Gower's "O deus immense" and the Place of Poetry, 1398-1400," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 45 (2023): 205-46 Gower Subject Minor Latin Poetry Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Loquela gravis iuvat": Gower's "O deus immense" and the Place of Poetry, 1398-1400." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Weiskott's essay casts many lines in many ponds, making summarization difficult. Setting out "to demonstrate that 'O deus immense' can illuminate Gower's attitudes to poetry, his rebarbative late Latin poetic style, the shape of his career, his position in literary and political culture late in life, and the broader political moment of those years," as well as offering "new evidence for the influence of 'O deus immense' on one of his own subsequent compositions" (209)--i.e., the "Cronica Tripertita"--he scarcely has space, even in forty-one pages, to do full justice to all of them. The topic that holds his attention longest is making a case that Gower saw himself as "vatic" poet (235), consciously casting himself in the role of a prophet (esp. 235-44), with some similarities to John of Bridlington. Lack of firm dates for many of the poems Weiskott discusses makes this case difficult: it's hard to claim foresight if a poem is written after the fact. The essay does, however, offer a strong argument for reading the shorter, late Latin poems with greater care and attention. [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Weiskott, Eric. Published Weiskott, Eric . "'Loquela gravis iuvat': Gower's 'O deus immense' and the Place of Poetry, 1398–1400." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 45 (2023): 205-46 . Gower Subject Minor Latin Poetry Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Loquela gravis iuvat": Gower's "O deus immense" and the Place of Poetry, 1398–1400. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review The value of Watt's essay for the study of Gower manuscripts lies in its suggestion that the "terminus ad quem" of London, British Library, Additional MS 59495 ("olim" the Trentham MS) should be extended to "at least late 1400 if not 1401" (151) and that much of the entire manuscript (which includes "Cinkante Balades" and several of Gower's Latin lyrics) "offers a meditation on the king's responsibility to address schism and heresy without excessive violence" (150), signaled by the emphasis on pity at the end of "In Praise of Peace" that "primes readers to look for [pity] throughout the rest" of the manuscript (146). Watt's dating of the manuscript relies on his claim that when Gower wrote the final stanza of "In Praise of Peace" he "had Manuel II in mind" (132), referring to Greek Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus who visited the English court in late 1400 to seek support for war against the Ottoman Turks. This plausible, although unprovable, claim depends upon Watt's extension of the MED definition of "mescreantz" (PP 268) to include not only pagans and infidels but also heretics and schismatics, and it leads to Watt's "argument . . . that Gower includes Manuel II"--Greek Orthodox rather than Roman Catholic--"among the 'other princes cristene all'" (PP 380) whom Gower enjoins to "Sette ek the rightful Pope upon his stalle" (PP 383), appealing for, as Watt puts it, an "end to the Great Schism as well as the Western Schism" (137). Watt supports his reading with analysis of the "final exemplum" of "In Praise of Peace," the tale of Emperor Constantine's conversion, an analysis based on Watt's "assumption that readers . . . would likely know the version of Constantine's conversion story that Gower tells" in Book II of "Confessio Amantis" and "chooses not to tell at all" (139) in "In Praise of Peace." Differences between the two versions, Watt tells us, "assert that mercy [pity] and piety are better than a bloodbath . . . . a particularly urgent argument at a time when the emperor [Manuel] himself had come to seek help in the wake of Nicopolis" (140) where crusaders had been routed. Watt contrasts Gower's aversion to crusade in the "Praise of Peace" version of the Constantine tale with the more bellicose views of Philippe de Mézières and those of Adam Usk, two writers Watt uses to clarify the context of Gower's views throughout his essay, which he closes with a survey of the theme of pity in the Trentham manuscript and a brief account of the English payment to Manuel II. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Watt, David. Published Watt, David. "'Mescreantz,' Schism, and the Plight of Constantinople: Evidence for Dating and Reading London, British Library, Additional MS 59495." In Martha Driver, Derek Pearsall, and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. Publications of the John Gower Society, no. 14. Rochester, NY: Brewer, 2020. Pp. 131-51. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies In Praise of Peace Cinkante Ballade Minor Latin Poetry Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Mescreantz,'"Schism, and the Plight of Constantinople: Evidence for Dating and Reading London, British Library, Additional MS 59495. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020