12 100 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 This collection of sixteen essays "originated as part of the Third International Congress of the John Gower Society, held at the University of Rochester, June 29-July 3, 2014. . . . All the essays here have been included because in one manner or another they comment on facets of selfhood: views of the inside, the personal, and of the exterior, the outside in its interaction with the 'other,' defined several ways" Introduction 1). The collection is divided into three sections: Part 1, "Knowing the Self and Others," consists of five essays "that, taken together, reflect on multiple aspects of self-encounter" (Introduction 1). Part II, "The Essence of Strangers," includes five essays united by "the expanding awareness by the singular self of an encompassing 'otherness'" (Introduction 2). "The six essays in Part III, "Social Ethics, Ethical Poetics," trace the trajectory of two of Gower's greatest concerns: honest government and honest craft, bringing together "the very public and the very private ("Others and the Self") in the fabric of life and thought" (Introduction 2). For individual essays, search for John Gower: Others and the Self under Published. [LBB. Copyright. John Gower Society. JGN 36.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Peck, Russell A. and R. F. Yeager, eds. Published Peck, Russell A. and R .F. Yeager, eds. John Gower: Others and the Self. Publications of the John Gower Society XI. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2017. ISBN 9781843844747. 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 John Gower: Others and the Self. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 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 Carlson presents his argument succinctly in the Introduction: "… to establish that poetry was written in fourteenth-century England by sponsorship of the monarchic state, in prosecution of state-official purposes, and that the … official verse-production culminated in the late writings of … John Gower" (1). The book is divided into two main sections: "Fourteenth-Century Panegyric Verse and Official Writing" and "Gower's State-Official Late Poetry." The term "propaganda" used in the title is not to be understood in its modern sense of a presentation designed to foster a state-proposed view of events or persons, likely a misrepresentation, but simply as a propagation of an official view which may or may not support it, more in the sense of classical panegyric. The reader is cautioned not to conclude that the fourteenth-century English state had anything like the unity of organization and purpose that would allow it to function in concerted support of the stated goals of monarchs and ministers in the manner we would today take for granted, even though it had centralized institutions and leaders at various levels who could enforce their conclusions. Chapter One, "Official Verse: The Sources and Problems of Evidence," begins and ends with poets associated with the defeat of Edward II's forces by the Scots at Bannockburn in 1314. Edward, expecting to win a great victory, took with him the poet Robert Baston to record and extol his accomplishments. Awkwardly, Baston was taken prisoner in the rout and required to win his release by celebrating the Scottish victory. Scots poets also celebrate the victory and at least one English author, Laurence Minot, records a generation later the avenging of the defeat. The case of Baston is intended to establish a "baseline of belief current amongst the English from early in the fourteenth century: this is what poets were, or were for, in some measure or other … promiscuous tools … to be used for propaganda production on behalf of commissioning agencies within the secular state" (6). No direct evidence of such commissioning survives prior to the mid-fifteenth century but Carlson discusses possible indirect indicators in a selection of poems, poets, and patrons, concluding that the indirect evidence is inconclusive. Chapter Two, "The State Propaganda," discusses pamphlets, newsletters (i.e. letters containing contemporary news) and official documents produced and circulated to propagate the state's achievements and "used by poets as matter for transmutation into metrical propaganda" (26). Rarely do such sources survive and they typically must be inferred from their traces, in which evidence of dependence is ephemeral. Where, however, such dependence can be established, we must conclude that the product, typically official Latin verse, can be characterized as state-sponsored. Carlson illustrates how the "only contemporary example of the pamphlet literature to survive directly in evidence, more or less complete, as it originally was, and unaltered" (32), an instance by one Thomas Favent supporting the Appellants in the coup of 1387, made use of state-documents and official records. He shows as well the presence of official documents and newsletters in Robert Avesbury's "Mirabilia gesta" and official documents and pamphlets in Henry Knighton's "Chronicle." All three authors had access to and employed state-sponsored versions of events whatever use they ultimately made of their sources and whether or not they were sponsored in their writings. Chapter Three concerns itself with "Occasions of State and Propagandistic Verse in Mid-Century," investigating such poetry written upon occasions of special significance in the reign of Edward III as epitaphs upon his claim to the French throne, heroic celebrations of his naval victory at Sluys, lamentations upon the death of his eldest son, and eulogies composed at his own passing. In all instances, "one suspects but may not confirm" (67) some sort of linkage between state and poet. Two poems which do evidence poets' "dependence on official sources, and so possibly of commissioning" (68) come in for special treatment in subsequent chapters. Walter Peterborough's "Victoria belli in Hispania," about the battle of Nájera in 1367, is the subject of Carlson's Chapter Four, and Richard Maidstone's "Concordia," written in 1392 to celebrate the reconciliation of Richard II with the city of London, is discussed in Chapter Five. These two poems "set precedent for what Gower was to take on in 1400 [in the CrT], making what he was to do not surprising or innovative, but perhaps only better and more effective, with the way having been prepared in advance by these near-contemporary local poets" (68). The evidence for the use of state-documents and the expectation of sponsorship is complex and resists easy summation. The reader will simply have to work through it in detail. Chapter Six, "Official Writing at the Lancastrian Advent," details official Henrician maneuverings and propaganda upon the occasion of the new king's usurpation of his cousin's throne in 1399, most especially the records of the Westminster Committee of Advisors that recommended various strategies to Bolingbroke as he schemed to attain the throne, and the so-called "Record and Process," a document purporting to be the official account of the parliamentary proceedings connected with Richard's deposition and Henry's installation that became a widely-circulated justification of events and a source book for subsequent apologists for the new king. Chapter Seven presents "English Poetry in Late Summer 1399," and suggests that there exists "some evidence to the effect that poets may have been … employed" as spokespersons "in propagating state-views of the Lancastrian advent," specifically five "contemporary local poems [one of them the CrT], all sharing the same curious array of properties" (121), specifically a "shared disposition of the same deliberately veiled manner of speaking, in riddling and opaque allegories of a specialized type" (135) and "their coincident concentration on the same group of minor Ricardian place-holders" [Scrope, Bussy, Green, and Bagot] (136) whose dispositions are presented as just accession to the "clamor populi" even if the people, in Carlson's view, are but the five poets themselves. "Rather than popular effusions … the contemporary English poems on the events of July and August [1399] are, on balance, more likely to be evidence again of the Lancastrian regime's labour of public self-fashioning and disposition to manipulate the verbal record" (152). Chapter Eight, "The 'Cronica Tripertita' and its Official Source," is the keystone in Carlson's argument for the presence of Lancastrian propaganda in late fourteenth-century Anglo-Latin poetry, concluding upon a study of correspondences in overall structure as well as "particular structures of selection, arrangement, emphasis, and interpretation" between the "Record and Process" and the Cronica Tripertita that "whenever possible, as much as possible, Gower used the 1399 parliamentary record" (169), although eventually forced to other sources simply because the "Record and Process" "gives out" on him. Finally, Carlson judges, the poem "is a technically complex reassembly, built out of a difficult, disorderly prose source, supplemented from disparate other materials. For the substance of events that the poem treats, Gower can be shown to have drawn from time to time on half a dozen sources and kinds of sources: on other parts of the public records, of the parliaments of October 1399 … and of 1388 … on talk in circulation … on his own personal connections among the grand … and, finally, on his own (considerable, professional) capacity to invent, especially when bound to tell of events he could know little about, remote from his base in London …" (196). Mostly, however, employing a copy of the "Records and Process," Gower, "like Walter Peterborough or Richard Maidstone … rendered the state verse service" (196). Chapter Nine, "Gower after the Revolution," presents the evidence in state papers and his own words of Gower's acknowledgement of his status as a client of Henry, although "nothing is directly in the evidence to the effect that Gower took the payment to write just what poetry he did deliver up, or that the payment from Henry was conditioned with an express understanding to the same effect on the royal part." In brief, "Henry took the throne, Gower entered the new king's pay, and his poetic apology for his usurpation appeared, along with some other, briefer poems" (203). Moreover, "Gower's poems written after the revolution--the epigrammata as well as 'In Praise of Peace'--served Henry, 'ad laudem serenissimi'" (209). Yet no sooner had the Lancastrian taken the throne than disturbing indicators of his own high-handed ruling style began to appear and it is probable that, "in the end, the same Gower who had made himself an official Lancastrian client-mouthpiece, Henry's poet like no other, when faced afterwards with an again altering social-political circumstance, remained still capable of speaking against the same authority's improprieties, with the 'vox clamantis in deserto'" (226). Carlson's book is an important contribution to the study of Anglo-Latin verse and Lancastrian historiography. His sensitive analysis of records and verse shows how, although we are inevitably dependent in various ways upon what they say, the records and documents are difficult to interpret because we know so little about them and their authors, who are typically in service to authority in some way albeit indistinctly and/or covertly. Gower offers the clearest instance of the relationship between poets and patrons in the fourteenth century, especially because his views of the two monarchs who occupied him most continually evolved. He moved from one extreme to another about Richard and proved critical of Henry even after going on the record in his support. Yet there is no reason to conclude that he adopted his positions for the sake of the support he received or hoped to receive. As far as anybody can tell, his positions are the result of his convictions even though at life's end he was in a favored status and receiving state subsidies. Both Richard and Henry were issue of an arrogant and willful ruling caste devoted to its own interests and authors of many questionable acts and decisions. As a devout and learned man committed to an ongoing analysis of English society, yet closely associated with and at various times both sympathetic to and critical of the two rulers about whom he writes, Gower might likely, as Carlson recognizes, have drawn the same conclusions about the pair whether his interpretations were solicited and supported or not. [Robert J. Mendl. Copyright JGN 31.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Carlson, David R Published Carlson, David R. "John Gower: Poetry and Propaganda in Fourteenth-Century England." Cambridge: Brewer, 2012 ISBN 9781843843153 Gower Subject Biography of Gower Cronica Tripertita 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 John Gower: Poetry and Propaganda in Fourteenth-Century England. 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 2012 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 Review Saul undertakes to defend Gower once again from the charge of political opportunism that has recently reappeared surrounding his evident switch of allegiance from Richard II to Henry IV. After surveying the chronology of Gower's revisions in VC and CA, comparing the more traditional view to Terry Jones' recent argument that all of the pro-Lancastrian passages date from after 1399, he concludes that Gower would have had insufficient time for extensive rewriting of his work between Henry's accession and the onset of his own blindness and that his revisions must have taken place over a longer period of time. The date is not of major importance, moreover, since Gower's judgments of Richard are completely consistent with a view of kingship that he expressed in all of his major works. Saul traces the roots of Gower's doctrine of kingship to Giles of Rome. The king, in Gower's mind, was entitled to obedience, was answerable only to God, and was entitled to rule with considerable magnificence. This was a view that he shared with Richard and with virtually all of the ruling class of the time. The reason for Gower's abandonment of Richard, according to Saul, was Richard's failure to live up to another of Giles' precepts, on the king's need for moderate self-rule. As evidence of Richard's lack of self-discipline, Saul cites incidents from 1382 and 1385 (not explaining why Gower nonetheless expressed such admiration for Richard in his first dedication of CA) and the king's quarrel with the city of London in 1392, the same incident cited by Fisher.[PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 30.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Saul, Nigel Published Saul, Nigel. "John Gower: Prophet or Turncoat?" In John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition. Ed. Dutton, Elisabeth and Hines, John and Yeager, R.F. Cambridge: Brewer, 2010, pp. 85-97. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Vox Clamantis Biography of Gower 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 John Gower: Prophet or Turncoat? 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 The publication of this volume is certainly one of the major events in Gower criticism of the last few years. Its thirteen essays were originally read at the annual Gower sessions at Kalamazoo. Other papers from Kalamazoo have already appeared in print (e.g. Benson's study of "Canace and Machaire," in Chaucer Review, 19 [1984]). Those who have not been able to make it to Kalamazoo each year -- and those who have as well -- will be grateful that the best of the remaining papers have been gathered here. All have been revised and expanded, some substantially, for publication. Twelve of the thirteen essays are concerned all but exclusively with CA, but unlike those collected by Minnis in Responses and Reassessments, which offered new ways of looking at the structure of the poem as a whole, most are focused rather more narrowly on problems of Gower's sources, investigations of particular subjects in his poem, studies of particular passages, and examinations of particular MSS of CA. All are competently and professionally done, and several have implications that range well beyond the topic immediately at hand. Together, the volume presents a good cross-section of recent and current scholarship on Gower, and because of its very diversity, there is certain to be something of interest for every reader of Gower here. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F., ed. Published Yeager, R. F., ed. "John Gower: Recent Readings. Papers Presented at the Meetings of the John Gower Society at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 1983-88." Studies in Medieval Culture, 26 . Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1989 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 John Gower: Recent Readings. Papers Presented at the Meetings of the John Gower Society at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 1983-88. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Western Michigan University, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989 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 Review Yeager provides an overview of John Gower's engagement, in life and works, with the procedures, lexis and literary-creative influence of common (or civil) law. Biographical facts and conjectures are rehearsed (period of birth; county of origin; possible social, armigerous extraction and filiation; vexed 'striped-sleeves motif' at Mirour de l'Omme 21772-74; landed estate ownership and acquisition, including the 'Septvauns Case'; elaborate testament concerning real estate and chattels), all shown to evince vigorous, if involved, response to law and its proceedings. Moving on to the textual/literary level, Yeager reviews a number of passages (in Mirour, Vox, Cronica, Confessio) clearly indicative of the poet's writing under multi-sided, common-legal influence across his exceptionally trilingual corpus, critically addressing socio-literary topics from estates to justice and kingship to procedures of love as trial and verdict: "[Gower's] scathing critique of aspects of the judicial system and profession in general; the overt presence of legal terms in his trilingual writings; and often enough the almost judicial presentation of narrative matter have seemed to many largely to prove exact legal knowledge, if not first-hand practice" (650). Yeager thus contributes to a current revival of looking into the case for a "legal Gower." Yet missing from his account is how Gower's oeuvre also reflects forms of possibly rudimentary, yet significant absorption of canon law. Still unstudied is how Gower would have known about it, most conceivably (if not any earlier) through his exceptionally long residence at the Augustinian priory at Southwark facilitating familiarisation with canon law and ensuing synodal legislation (distinctive components of regular canons' habitus). The poems nevertheless reflect a sizeable awareness of that domain, especially in discussions of matrimony or socio-religious estates, not least Mirour (notably at 16081-92 ff., and 17137-748; both laws are in syntactic and prosodic equipoise at 16092 and 17140) and Traitié pour Essempler les Amantz Marietz." [J-PP. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 36.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower" in Écrivains juristes et juristes écrivains du Moyen Âge au siècle des Lumières, ed. Bruno Méniel (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2015), pp, 648-652. ISBN 9782812451461. Gower Subject Biography of Gower Language and Word Studies Vox Clamantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Cronica Tripertita Confessio Amantis Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz 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 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 Gower is one of three canonical authors (along with Chaucer and Langland) to receive his own chapter in this introduction to law and literature in medieval England. Yeager contrasts Gower's literary criticisms of the legal estate with his personal interactions with the law. He notes that the famous reference to Gower wearing "rayed sleeves" comes at the end of a section on friars and likely suggests "an ecclesiastical allusion, not a legal one" (149). Yeager further argues that when Chaucer made Gower his attorney in 1378, it may have been because of Gower's frequent buying and selling of property, "not unlike the way an experienced real-estate agent today understands the legal ins and outs of property purchases and sales" (153). Gower's involvement with the law is also seen in his detailed last will: "in 1408, when Gower died, written will were relatively unusual" (150). Nevertheless, Gower's criticism of legal practitioners suggests that he was not a lawyer himself (153). Yeager goes on to demonstrate that Gower's work presents a rich and varied treatment of legal themes. Gower has a broad understanding of the types of law, ranging from natural law and the law of charity to more concrete positive law. He also links the concept of justice with a constellation of similar virtues (equity, love, grace, mercy, pity, etc.). In fact, Gower's theological view of justice (which is separate from the law proper) is deeply Augustinian (155-56). It is also political, as Gower rebukes Richard II in the "Cronica Tripertita" for shaping the law to suit his own needs (156). By contrast, Henry IV is entirely associated with justice: "In the Cronica the most common adjectives describing Henry and each of his initial acts as new monarch are 'iustus' and 'pius'" (156). Despite his support for Henry IV, Gower is not an absolutist or monarchist. Neither is he strictly a parliamentarian or constitutionalist. Gower advocates for good counsel and he recognizes that the king's authority stems from the law, but he also maintains that only the king can "legitimate the law by ensuring its equitable application" (159). [CvD. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Law and Literature, ed. Candace Barrington and Sebastian Sobecki. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019), pp. 148-66. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Biography of Gower 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 John Gower. 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 Although to some degree confined by her format, Watt nonetheless manages to go well beyond the standard demands of the "Companion form" (i.e., a little biography, some attention to the full oeuvre, general remarks on style and content) to offer a number of intriguing and original insights, especially regarding the extent of Gower's influence on fifteenth-century poetics. The chief concern of that century, as she sees it, is "the connection between vernacular poetry, politics, and patriotism," and in this they follow Gower's lead "even more than Chaucer['s]" (155). She utilizes this triad to examine the "Confessio Amantis," acknowledging its "apparent disunity--the dual foci on the ethical-political and the erotic" (157), which she partially (indeed, generously) explains away as "Gower's playfulness" [158]--and contesting any notion that "Gower adheres to a conservative gender ideology," citing his empathetic treatment of women, of which the case of Canace is offered as a prime example (158). Watt traces this connective triad in compact but provocative assessments of Hoccleve's "Regiment of Princes" and Lydgate's "Fall of Princes," finding evidence of Gower's unacknowledged influence in both. In the "Regiment," the Beggar in her view borrows from Genius, and Hoccleve's political position in significant ways echoes "the Gower of the late, pro-Lancastrian propaganda poem, 'In Praise of Peace'" (160). In the "Fall" and in the "Regiment," "a number of the same stories as [in] 'Confessio Amantis'" appear, "including the famous Tales of Lucrece and Virginia as well as other political narratives" (161). Other similarities between the "Fall" and the CA include "lengthy discussion of vice and virtue" in each, and the prominent presence of Alexander the Great, shared with both the "Regiment" and the CA. Watt's most startling assertion, however, is that an "unexpected aspect of Gower's influence on Lydgate" is "their shared fascination with salacious stories," particularly those dealing with incest (161-62). Thus, "while Lydgate owes as [sic] least as much to Gower as does Hoccleve, he is even less willing than Hoccleve to admit it" (162). Watt does see however that "in one crucial respect, Hoccleve and Lydgate diverge from Gower" (163): unlike Gower, who saw writing in English as a "development from his previous work in French and Latin" (163), for Hoccleve and Lydgate English is their only medium--which goes a long way toward explaining their expressed fondness for Chaucer. But she concludes: "Nevertheless, in terms of real, if unacknowledged influence, Gower remained second to none" (163). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Watt, Diane. Published Watt, Diane. "John Gower." In Larry Scanlon, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. 153-64. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Influence and Later Allusion 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 John Gower. 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Echard, Siân. Published Echard, Siân. "John Gower." In Raluca Radulescu and Sif Rikhardsdottir, eds. The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 289-99. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Minor Latin Poetry Language and Word Studies Review Echard opens her introduction to Gower's poetry with comments on the Portuguese and Castilian translations of the "Confessio Amantis" as evidence that "the English poet found an interested audience" (289) abroad in Europe, remarking in her conclusion that "he would, I imagine, have been glad" that the CA "made it across the sea" (297). Taken out of context in this way, Echard's remark is unremarkable, but she continues more resoundingly in her closing: "A trilingual poet who aspires to match the authors of old requires an international and transhistorical audience, but Gower seems profoundly aware that exchanges of all sorts could have negative effects . . . . [H]is work is threaded through with exchanges between past and present, between authors old and new, and between lands and peoples. He is self-consciously England's poet; he is equally self-consciously one who can speak to the larger world, however ambivalent he may be about the mechanisms of exchange" (297). Throughout her essay, Echard focuses on Gower's ambitious trilinguality, and on his uses of English and Englishness in CA in relation to the prestige of French and, especially, Latin. She broadens these out to analysis of thematic and formal concerns with localization and expansion, particularity and generality--to "the idea that [in CA] apparent marginalization of English comes from, or intersects with, a tension between the local and the universal" (291). The complex coherence of Echard's demonstration is difficult to describe briefly, so I offer sample insights from her rich variety instead. She clarifies how the "particularly localised" Ricardian version of the CA Prologue capitalizes on the generalizing implications of London as "newe Troye," and how the Henrician version--offered as a book for England--frames the universalizing "exemplary narratives with an explicitly English location," each version bracketing Gower's tales in English with complementary Latin (292-93). Although it is only in some copies of CA, Echard shows us that "Quam cinxere freta" presents Gower as "England's own poet," "exemplifies the productive tension between universality and particularity," and reflects "Gowerian anxiety" about assured posterity (293). For Echard, the Tale of Constance "is a negotiation of English and Roman identities" that "invokes an explicitly English past" (294), while the tales of Constance and of Apollonius together, "at the beginning and end" of CA, "use overseas travel to work through issues relating to identity, to the intersection of the particular, localised origin with a world of contact and exchange" (295). In light of these (and others) of Echard's observations, I have little doubt that Gower would have been glad that CA made it across the sea--and also glad to have Siân Echard as a reader. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1] 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 John Gower. 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 Yeager's contribution to the "Oxford History of Poetry in English" bids to establish a new status for Gower in English literary history: that of a ground-breaker; a metrical, formal, and stylistic innovator. Covering a wide range of information about Gower's works and traditional topics in Gower criticism--Gower's trilingualism, his poetic ambitions, his sources, and the relative chronology of his works--Yeager weaves them together with particular emphasis on what he calls "a broad strain of experimentalism that runs throughout" Gower's works in all three languages (441), most evident in cross-fertilizations across language boundaries. Early on, Yeager cites "'Eneidos bucolis'" and the three-volume, three-language head-rest of Gower's tomb effigy as evidence that his "sense of a poetic self took Virgil's example as an inspiration" and "his decision to write extensively--and continually--in French, Latin, and Middle English" (440-41). "[D]iscoveries made writing verse in one language," Yeager maintains, "at times carried over influentially into his work in others," and this essay is--to put it over-simply--a description of those carry-overs from Gower's French and Latin poetry into his "Confessio Amantis." After a brief acknowledgement of the uncertainties of dating Gower's works and manuscripts (recurrent sub-topics), Yeager launches his assessment of "Mirour de l'Omme" (in French, "written in the 1370s or somewhat earlier") as "an ambitious enterprise, particularly if it was indeed Gower's initial poetic project" (441). The length of the MO, its intricate, twelve-line stanzas, and the regularity of its meter are Yeager's concerns here as they anticipate "Gower's future poetics" in the "Vox Clamantis" and the "Confessio Amantis," particularly his habitually "smooth flowing verse" (442), achieved via willingness "to subordinate both syntax and grammar" in the French prosody of the MO and similar manipulations of English in CA. Yeager adds that the "inward turn" (442) of the MO, "moving from allegory to social criticism to intense self-scrutiny"--"altogether unprecedented in late medieval literature"--anticipates Gower's unusual combinations of genres elsewhere, his "formal iconoclasm" (443). Formal concerns are also Yeager's targets in his discussion of Gower's two other French works, "Traitié" and "Cinkante Balades." Yeager argues for dating "Traité" rather earlier than usual (see n12), and suggests persuasively that, as in the CA (which may have been composed or revised at or about the same time), marginal Latin glosses enact "dialogic argument as a means to examine ideas" (444). In the "Traitié," the argument is "unfolded one balade at a time"--an "entirely original conception apparently unique to Gower" (443). The early dating of the "Traitié" also enables Yeager to extend Martin Duffell's argument (1996) about Gower's hendecasyllables and to suggest that "Gower, rather than Chaucer, may have invented iambic pentameter--albeit in French" (444). In turn, the CB is, for Yeager, a "true sequence, each poem building upon the next to supply information about events, and particularly character, both of the male lover and the lady he addresses," anticipating Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" by two hundred years and prompting Yeager to speculation: "Had Gower elected to write the 'Cinkante Balades' in English, his subsequent reputation would have been very different" (445). The CB influenced the characterization of Amans in CA, Yeager tells us, the vocabularies of the poems are similar at points, and, as with the "Traitié," "resonances" of the CB "are detectable in Gower's English prosody" (446). Turning to Gower's Latin works, Yeager sidesteps "Cronica Tripertita" because it is too late to influence CA (although it may have affected "In Praise of Peace"), and goes on to treat the "Vox Clamantis" as innovative in two respects: the dream vision of the "Visio Anglie" and the plain style of the VC at large. For Yeager, the "Visio" opens as a traditional dream vision, but "quickly transforms into a harrowing nightmare unmatched in English literature, save only, perhaps, by the 'Nighttown' section of James Joyce's 'Ulysses." (446). The plain style of VC---its "unrhymed elegiac distichs" (Yeager here following A. G. Rigg, 1992)--"had little contemporary precedent in England," even though Langland was trying something similar in English when seeking to reach a "discernable audience" through a middle style. Moreover, the plain style of VC contrasts sharply with the "highly artificial scholastic verse" of medieval Latin poetry and, "probably of greater importance" to Gower, it was a means whereby he "positioned himself with Virgil and Ovid" (447). The "thoughtful, innovative poetics" of Gower's "remoulding" of classical poetry occupies Yeager briefly while he revisits his earlier (1989) assessment of classical "cento" in VC, where Gower borrowed lines from classical sources and recontextualized them to produce new meanings in his own poems--techniques that are, like the others mentioned above, "replicated in Gower's Middle English work, if in somewhat different garb" (448). The CA is not, of course, a wholly Middle English text at all: "Gower envisioned it as a work in two languages, English and Latin" (449). Its Latin prose glosses produce, as they do in the "Traitié," a "bilingual polyvocality" which provides Gower with an "alternative 'voice', unidentifiably sourced in the text but specifically non-authorial with which to usher the reader into, and engage with, the vernacular poetry" (449). Moreover, the CA includes poetic passages in Latin (the Latin in "Traitié" is prose), and the labor Gower expends on them, for Yeager, "suggests additional aesthetic ambition." Structurally, "most of the Latin verses" included in CA, Yeager tells us, "mark stages" in Amans' confession, but they also "introduce ideas, and . . . images that will arise in the English many lines later" (450) and at greater length, producing poetic effects that Yeager exemplifies: characterization, "deliberated irony," and punning--"enriching and thickening the English, albeit in riddling--even Donnean--fashion." Explicating interactions between several passages of English verse in CA and Latin ones, Yeager demonstrates that Latin recurrently introduces or interjects "playfulness" into his poem without diminishing its seriousness of purpose, i.e., the "socio-political concerns" that run throughout MO, VC, and CA; the "basic strategy and socially ameliorative purpose that remain the same in all three poems" (452); and the differing, though purposive, targeting of their audiences. The final movement of Yeager's essay is a detailed survey of the resonances of Gower's French prosody in his CA: the use of exemplary tales as in MO, albeit with "greater sophistication" in CA; the "mutual crossover" in his "handling of rhyme" in CA and CB, essentially "monosyllabic, or simple bi-syllables" (453); the "near-absolute regularity of metre" in CA that has "no English counterpart" but does in French poetry by Machaut, Deschamps, and Gower himself; and--Latin here as well as French--the virtuosity with which Gower sustains congruency of "grammar, syntax, [and] precise word selection" over long stretches to carry "extended thoughts smoothly over many lines, notwithstanding the shortness of the four-beat couplet that renders this task demanding." In short, Gower's "mastery of the verse-paragraph is nonpareil" (454), a claim that Yeager substantiates through explication of several passages in which he identifies Gower's "mellifluousness," "aural imagery" and "arresting vividness" (455). Maintaining that "the accentual pattern of conventional English speech over thousands of lines is a control Gower alone achieves," Yeager exclaims that "Chaucer seldom matches it; Hoccleve and Lydgate, never" (454). Yeager's enthusiasm for Gower's cross-fertilizing innovations and poetic style may well put to rest the generations-old canard that Gower is a pedestrian poet (search "dull" in the John Gower Bibliography Online for too many examples). Whether or not Yeager's essay cements a new, more positive orthodoxy of Gower as an experimentalist remains to be seen, but its evidence, arguments, authority, and placement in the Oxford History give it a good chance to do so. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published Yeager, R. F. "John Gower." In Helen Cooper and Robert R. Edwards, eds. The Oxford History of Poetry in English. Volume 2. Medieval Poetry: 1100-1400 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), pp. 440-56. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Mirour de l'Omme Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Cinkante Balades In Praise of Peace Cronica Tripertita Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz 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 John Gower. 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Peck, Russell A., ed. Published Peck, Russell A., ed. "John Gower. Confessio Amantis, 3 vols." Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2004 Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Confessio Amantis Review LET ME SAY first of all that the production of this new edition of the "Confessio Amantis" is a remarkable achievement, and Russell Peck deserves every praise for his energy and erudition, and for his expedition in bringing the project to completion in such a comparatively short time. This praise must be added to the admiration he has won from all scholars and students of Middle English for his Herculean efforts in master-minding the TEAMS series (of which these Gower volumes are part) over the years since 1990. We should also add a word of praise for the team of helpers he has gathered around him at Rochester, and whom he is so generous in acknowledging, and for the Gower volumes a special commendation to Andrew Galloway, since it is he who has contributed the translations of the Latin (both the Latin verses and the marginal summaries and annotations) which are the single most important feature of the new edition. The lay-out of the fairly large format page, with good-sized print, wide margins, side-glosses, translations of the Latin verses at the foot of the page (the translations of the Latin marginal summaries and annotations are among the Explanatory Notes at the end of each volume), is very pleasing, and the volumes, though large, are easy to use. I like the little medieval-style hands with pointing fingers that signal the presence of marginalia, as translated in the Notes; the form of the speech-markers and of the titles for stories and subjects inserted at the beginning of 'chapters'; also the simple, unfussy way in which the text of revisions like those at Prologue 24 are set out. There are some changes and improvements in format in Volume III, and I presume that these and other changes will be extended to and incorporated in the other volumes in later reprints. In this context of overall praise, there are some issues to take up. In the first place, the organisation of the three volumes, with Prologue and Books 1 and 8 in the first volume, Books 2-4 in the second, and Books 5-7 in the third, now looks a little bizarre. Russell Peck associates me with the idea of doing things in this way, and thanks me, and so I can hardly complain. I think what I had in mind was that students should have the general shape of the poem made available to them from the start. I suppose I was assuming that it would be a good many years before the other volumes came out (perhaps with the experience of being on the Council of the EETS in mind) and that meanwhile this was a good interim measure. In the event, Russell has surprised us all with his speed in moving to completion, and all I can say is that what looked like quite a good idea at the time has turned out a little oddly. No matter: it is all there. The text is not a great problem with Gower. One could follow Macaulay exactly and produce a perfectly satisfactory text. Peck goes back to MS Fairfax 3, follows Macaulay in some of his few emendations, though not in some others that are necessary (e.g. bore for MS both at 1.397, "worldes" for MS "worldee" at 5.5552), and not in his attempt to standardise Gower's grammar, spelling and metre on a systematic basis (e.g. standardisation of "here" and "hire" respectively as "their" and "her", and elimination of otiose final -e). Peck introduces a few emendations of his own, based on the small number of manuscripts he seems to have consulted, and also substitutes "agein" for "ayein," "forgat" for "foryat," "thee" for "the," etc., presumably to help the reader (Peck may explain his editorial practice somewhere, but so far I have not found where). Generally speaking, Peck favours the idea that the variations between manuscripts mark the progress of Gower's opinions rather than the day-to-day realities of manuscript production, as argued consistently by Peter Nicholson (see, for instance, the discussion at Vol. I, pp. 286-7). He tends still to assume that Gower himself supervised the production of MS Fairfax 3 (see Vol. I, p.69). The punctuation of the text is generally too heavy, a common fault in modern texts of Middle English verse, where there is the modern tendency to punctuate by the clause rather than the pause and to neglect the function of the line-end as a form of punctuation. I count twelve superfluous commas at line-end in eighty lines at 4.1118-93 (and two further unnecessary medial commas, at 1179 and 1180) in the lover's eager outpouring of his puppyish devotion to his lady, a passage which above any must run freely and without impediment. Side-glosses can be for ever taxed with omission and superfluity, often on the basis of personal preference, but there is one general point worth making. Side-glosses are always in danger of providing too many contextualised senses for common words which are not really needed and which may deter the reader from doing the normal and necessary work of reading in context. For instance, "To stonde" in "To stonde at his commandement" (Prol.84) is glossed "To submit to," where the extended sense of "stand" is familiar and easy to come to through the context; likewise with "mot stonde" in "For trowthe mot stonde ate laste" (Prol.369), glossed "must remain" (see the very relevant note on the frequency of the verb "stand" in Gower at Prol.143, Vol. I, p.291). This kind of contextual explicitness will sometimes also lose the lively possibility of personification that is always present in Gower's poetry. In Prol.223, "Humilité was tho withholde," withholde is glossed "practiced (held with)," which misses the (for me) vital sense of "retained" (as a retainer) which is preserved a few lines later in the gloss to :Which coveitise hath now withholde," (Prol.263, where there might be some debate too about the capital letter). So in Prol.130, "And lawe hath take hire double face," the side-glosses are "lawyers" and "put on (donned) their," which miss the personification and violate the rule that Macaulay at least insists on that "hire" in Gower means "her" (while "their" is always "here"). Another kind of over-explicitness is present in the translation of "conquestes" in Prol.709, "Gaf the conquestes that he wan" as "booty," which obscures the point that "conquestes" include kingdoms, as the subsequent lines make clear. Kingdoms, to me, don't sound like "booty," and it would have been better to leave the word unglossed. These are general points, worth observing; though of course one could disagree also about particulars in the these first few hundred lines, e.g., "plit" (Prol.676) as "plight" (better, "manner"), "franchise" (Prol.761) as "sovereignty" (better, "freedom"), "redely" (Prol.948) as "skillfully" (needs no gloss), "saulf" (Prol.1016) as "safe" (better, "saved," especially since Noah is being referred to). Here, too, over-explicitness is often the problem. The translations of the Latin verses are sometimes very weird-sounding. At Vol. I, p. 70, Tempus preteritum, 'Legibus vnicolor tunc temporis aura refulsit' is translated "then the unicolored air of the times was aglow with laws" (compare Siân Echard and Claire Fanger, "The Latin Verses in the Confessio Amantis," p. 5, "The air of that age shone, one-hued, with laws," with no loss, as far as I can see, of accuracy). At p.84, Prosper et aduersus, 'Mundu in euentu versatur' is translated "The world is overturned in its outcomes" (compare Echard and Fanger, "The world is tossed and turned by chance," with maybe some loss of specificity). At p.134, Flectere quam frangi, 'olle/ Fictilis ad cacabum pugna valere nequit' is translated "the attack of the earthen pot cannot prevail over the cauldron" (Echard and Fanger, "the blow/ Of claypot 'gainst the kettle is in vain"). At p.173, Gloria perpetuos, 'Scandere sellata iura valebit eques' is translated "will succeed in mounting up the saddled laws as a knight" (Echard and Fanger, "The knight . . . mounts the saddled laws"--I suspect "mounted up" is the problem here). And so on. I think Galloway may be trying to convey something of the contortions of Gower's Latin verse, the ostentation of opacity, the straining of metaphor, the tortured verse-forms, the Hisperican cleverness that undoes the ambitious Latinitator. It is all very painful. Strangely enough, the clouds clear as Volume II begins, and the translations begin to run much more fluently, almost as if Galloway had seen the light, or had just gradually got the knack of doing it. The Explanatory Notes are enormously full and informative (Peck has made good use of the mass of material in Peter Nicholson's invaluable "Commentary," and acknowledges too his extensive use of Macaulay's notes, e.g. Vol. I, p. 329). They are generally even-handed in matters of interpretation, and Peck does not grind too many of his own axes. They are perhaps at times too expansive; if they had been at the foot of the page, I think there might have been more economy. Sometimes, for instance, they draw in references to critical works of comparatively little importance, often making points that are of only general relevance or sometimes hardly worth making at all (e.g. at Prol.196, 1022, 1.1769, 3, 213, 1193--Peck seems fond of this quotation, and repeats it in the note to 8.2339). I think such notes, though I consider them superfluous, are a tribute to Peck's collegiality, his generosity to all who have written on the poem and his desire to acknowledge them by including them somewhere; the same would be true with the more indulgently lengthy quotation from the seminar-paper of a Rochester graduate-student (at 3.1375). The recurrent notes on what is happening in "Chaucer's Ghoast" (1672) are a whimsical addition to the already expansive annotation. The Introduction to Volume I takes a few passages from Peck's 1968 edition of "Selections" from the CA, but is greatly expanded. It is a fine piece of writing, instinct with a deep knowledge of and a deep feeling for the poem. Peck is particularly good on the Augustinian physiology and psychology of reading and perception, on 'reading as therapy', on the stories as exercises in maturing understanding, on the long dramatic narrative of self-discovery. His views have not changed much over the years. He sees Gower as a moral poet rather than a love-poet, indeed a moralist before a poet, and considers Book 7 the king-pin of the whole. It is not my view of the poem, but I have to acknowledge it to be closer to the modern consensus of critics like Kurt Olsson, Winthrop Wetherbee and James Simpson. Volume II has another long Introduction, stressing the nature of the CA as a "psychological drama of reading," and making good analysis of approaches to the poem in terms of performance-theory, the frame-narrative, and the use of visual imagery in narrative. There is also lavish explication of the stories in Books 3-5. Volume III has another long Introduction (I think Russell may now have said all that he wants to say about the poem), especially important in marking the shift from the confessional mode of earlier books to the more explicitly educational mode made evident in Book 7. There are some reflections on "Gower the Historian" and then, as before, extended summary and explication of the matter of the three books in the volume. There are a good many changes in format in this volume, presumably the model for future revisions of the whole. Innovations include the valuable List of Contents with itemized titles for each story and "chapter," an Index of Subjects (for Vols. I-III) and an Index of References for Vol. III only.One or two startling moments: "novelly," as adverb (Vol. I, p.303); "ficticious" (sic, Vol.I, p.344), "breech" (for "breach," Vol. I, p. 354). And how did "Let he who . . . . (Vol. I, p.201) get past so many distinguished professors of English? Some moans and disagreements therefore, inevitably; but a magnificent achievement. [DP. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 25.1.] When I reviewed the first volume of Peck's new edition of CA for JGN in 2001, I welcomed the opportunity that it gave to teach the poem in entire books rather than just selections, and I praised the choice to put the Prologue, Book 1, and Book 8 together in one volume as an ingenious solution to the problem of presenting the poem to beginners. I also commended Andrew Galloway's translations of the complete Latin apparatus. But I had a few reservations. I pointed out the incomplete and to some extent misleading account of the presentation of the text; I felt that Peck could have done a lot more to update Macaulay's punctuation; and I felt that he gave an overly directive reading of the poem in place of a real introduction. The completion of the edition with the appearance of volume 3 offers a chance to reassess both the scheme as a whole and the details of its execution. In some respects the edition has improved as it progressed. There is evidence of much greater care in the preparation of the text, and there are, for instance, more textual notes in vols. 2 and 3 than appeared in vol. 1, and they are far more detailed. There is still, however, no good account of the editorial procedure, a problem that is now only exacerbated by the inconsistencies between the first and the subsequent volumes. Peck claims to have used the Fairfax MS as his "copy text" (3:485) and to have "consulted" (3:33) six others (Macaulay's A, B, C, J, S, and T). This is a different list from vol. 1 (which does not cite C or T, but includes Delta), and it is not clear what Peck means by "consulted," since A, C, and T are cited far less often in the notes than B, J, and S. Even with these latter copies, the notes do not offer a complete record of variants. (Macaulay's notes offer a much fuller selection.) The emphasis is on departures from Macaulay: in vol. 3 alone there are 42 instances in which Peck follows F where Macaulay chooses to follow a different MS; 17 instances in which Peck follows F where Macaulay's different reading has no evident MS support (These are evidently Macaulay's errors of transcription. All are very minor. They include 5.5918, where the note is incorrect.); and 19 instances in which Peck follows Macaulay in departing from F. At least Peck has provided the MS authority for his departures from Macaulay or from F (one of the issues that I had with vol. 1), though he still does not explain what principles guided his choice. (His understanding of the relation among the surviving copies appears to be based only on Macaulay and Fisher; see 3.33.) The text itself appears reasonably accurate. I checked a passage of a little less than 400 lines (5.2859-3246) against both Macaulay and my photocopy of F. I found one instance where Peck follows Macaulay in error (my for mi in 5.2939) and one new mistake (him where Macaulay and F have hem, 5.2884). This is pretty small stuff, on about the same level as the errors that Peck found in Macaulay. I also found that Peck has modernized the capitalization and some of the spelling in his text, following the normal practice for TEAMS editions, and that he has also taken far more liberty with Macaulay's punctuation than he did in vol. 1, making at least two dozen changes in the passage that I examined. These are welcome, but again I wish he had done more, and there are at least another dozen passages in which I feel that no modern editor, beginning fresh, would have chosen the punctuation that Macaulay did. Again, not a major problem, but it does lead me to the same conclusion that I reached with vol. 1: that Peck's "copy text" was not Fairfax at all but Macaulay, which he has read against F and some other copies and which he has modernized a bit. This is actually not a new edition of the poem in the usual sense, and I think that Peck could have been a little clearer about it. The introductions to vols. 2 and 3 are very much in the mold of that to vol. 1. They offer us Peck's reading of the poem. Amans is a lost sinner; the poem is "a study of the self's effort to reclaim its own estate" (2:39); and Amans' personal regeneration also has a political and social correlative, in the regeneration of the community. In vol. 2 Peck is somewhat hard-pressed to apply this understanding to Books 2 and 3 except in his discussion of individual tales (which he must treat in isolation from the dialogue), and in Book 4, it emerges only as an unexpressed and ironic counterpoint to what Genius and Amans actually say. In vol. 3 Peck has somewhat more to work with, as "Gower alters his earlier structural patterns to shift the focus from confession and impersonation to education--education in good rule" (3:1). Except in his discussion of the treatment of Chastity, however, there is little hint in the third introduction that the poem is actually concerned with love, and Peck arranges his discussion (as Gower does not) to conclude with the tale of Lycurgus and the importance of the rule of law. There is certainly much of value here: a good couple of pages on Nature in vol. 2, for instance, (2:14-17) (though I find the preceding discussion of CA as "drama" to be heavy with anachronism), and some good comments on the folkloric aspect of CA and on the range of Gower's style in vol. 3 (3:10-15). But overall, Peck has evidently viewed this edition as an opportunity to espouse the same view of the thematic structure of the poem that he has argued for since 1968. Whether or not I agree with this view is unimportant (just for the record: I don't); what is at issue is whether or not this is an appropriate function for the introductions in an edition that is intended for beginners. I see another missed opportunity here. Not only does Peck close off discussion of such issues as the roles of Genius and Amans (What really does happen in the conclusion? For a view very different from Peck's, students should be directed to Burrow (1983).), but some of the best of the recent writers on Gower have opened up the poem in ways that couldn't have been anticipated when Peck and I first studied it, and some have challenged both the necessity and the possibility of a single consistent moral message from beginning to end. Except in his discussion of Nature, however, Peck never acknowledges them. By being a little less prescriptive, by focusing a little more on what still must be regarded as unresolved issues in the reading of the poem, Peck could have done quite a bit more to prepare the way for the next generation of Gower scholars. Having studied the poem for so long, Peck certainly knows it very well, and there is therefore much of value in the explanatory notes, particularly, I feel, in Book 7. And I must say once again what a fine job Andrew Galloway has done with the Latin apparatus. (Note to the publisher: half of the translation to the gloss at 5.4579 was inadvertently left out.) The notes also record Galloway's discovery that the twelve Latin glosses to the discussion of the signs of the zodiac in Book 7 are metrically regular and together constitute a "Latin poem on the seasons" (3:449); to which I can add that the second of these, at 7.1015, contains a typically Gowerian quotation of Ovid's "Fasti" 3.240, the best evidence that I know of that Gower himself actually composed at least some of the glosses to the poem. As for the overall scheme of the edition: it appears to me now that if the original plan was to make each volume independent, it has not been carried out consistently, and if it was not, then there was perhaps much less reason for presenting the poem out of chronological order and placing Book 8 in vol. 1. Vol. 3 contains a subject index (a list of characters and topics) to all three volumes, suggesting that they constitute a single work. Peck seems to have thought of his three introductions as parts of a single composition, and indeed his discussions of such topics as Nature or law are as relevant to any of the volumes as to the volume in which they occur, and his own argument on the structure of the poem depends heavily on reading Book 7 before Book 8. Those who use vol. 1 alone are going to receive a very partial, very incomplete view of the poem, and those who use the complete edition will now have a rather disjointed view. I'm afraid that moving Book 8 to vol. 1 seems much less of a good idea now that the edition is complete than it seemed at the beginning. In sum: this is a very attractive and usable edition of the complete text of the "Confessio Amantis"; it has some very important features (notably Galloway's translations); and it is very affordable. We have to be glad to have it. But it also has its quirks, notably its arrangement; as a guide to reading the poem, it has to be used with great care; and in several important ways, it leaves me thinking about what might have been. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 25.1.] FOR ALMOST 40 years--from 1966 to the year 2004--Russell Peck's edition of selections from Gower's "Confessio Amantis" has been the best hope of teachers wishing to introduce Gower's great poem to undergraduate readers. There were other excerpted editions, but none was as ambitious as Peck's nor, from the time it was taken up by the MARTS series, so neatly combining availability and affordability. Nevertheless, the first version of Peck's Gower left many gaps. As a collection of excerpts, it privileged the stories in the poem, excising much of the frame. That excision also necessarily removed the Latin from the poem--most of the Latin verses and all of the prose glosses disappeared. And as a one-volume edition of the poem, Peck's first edition was limited in terms of introduction and explanatory notes. Then, in the year 2000, Peck's new Gower began to appear, and by 2004 the three-volume set was complete. It still has the undergraduate student very much in mind: Volume 1 contains what one might think of as the essence of the poem, while Volumes 2 and 3 offer all the rest of--one could still assign a one-volume, partial Gower. But a quick glance at Volume 1 shows how differently we now approach the question of the essential Gower. This volume offers the poem's frame--the Prologue and Book VIII, and Book I, the introduction of the confessional structure. Like the other volumes, it now includes all the Latin: the verses, on the page with translations in the notes, and the glosses in both Latin and translation in the notes, indicated in the text by the presence of pointing hands. The speaker markers found in many manuscripts of the poem have been included as well. The poem no longer ends with the "Explicit iste liber," but rather, with the "Quia vnusquisque," a restatement of Gower's whole poetical career. Even in this single volume, then, the poem is presented as a complex, ornately structured, multi-layered and multi-lingual text, the work of a highly self-conscious public poet. There are gestures towards its textual tradition as well: the first volume offers 5 illustrations drawn from the manuscripts, and prints the Ricardian and Henrician versions of the Prologue side-by- side. The first edition drew on Macaulay, checking the venerable editor's work against the Fairfax manuscript, then understood to show signs of Gower's personal intervention. This new edition continues to draw on Macaulay, but has sampled from seven manuscripts (note a typo in the reference to Trinity R.3.3--Peck of course consulted R.3.2), and the results of that sampling appear in the (relatively brief) textual notes at the end of each volume. Volume 1 is a reimagination of what one might teach if one were teaching part of the CA--but the edition as a whole is much more. It represents a lifetime's work on the poet, and thus is in many ways a very different beast from that first collection of excerpts. Each volume has a meaty introduction, often consisting of two parallel texts--Peck's reading of the poem, and a second critical conversation taking place in the extensive footnotes (there was little room for engagement with criticism--and of course, much less criticism with which to engage--in 1966). The extensive notes add further critical depth: where in the 1966 excerpted edition they consisted largely of brief references to sources and analogues, here they range widely through both medieval texts and modern critics. The notes to the Latin material, provided by Andrew Galloway, who also did the translations, are extremely thorough and thoughtful, restoring this part of the poem to its full role in the CA as a whole. And Peck's introductions, ranging as they do through medieval theoretical, social, political and literary contexts, and drawing extensively on Gower's other works, give a clear sense of many different ways one could approach the CA. Excerpted editions in the first part of the last century often gave the impression that they existed simply to allow a reader to compare Gower's stories (usually unfavorably) to Chaucer's. This new student edition of Gower, whether represented by its first volume or by the whole set, makes Gower's own claims central. The introduction to Volume 1 sets out the plan of the CA, reading it as a confessional text in the Boethian mode. Some of this material appeared in the first edition as well, but here the argument is enriched with considerable detail, for example from St Augustine and other medieval thinkers on the subjects of memory, history, and learning. Peck argues that Gower's "middle weie" is in part a reflection of a new, 14th-century mode of reading, one which attends to the gaps in fictions. He takes up the question of Gower's various authorial impersonations as part of this discussion of reading and reception. In Volume 2 (Books II-IV), he shifts his attention to what he sees as Gower's dramaturgical mode, in which confession is shown to be a performative art. Book IV, the last book in this volume, is read as the culmination and structural center of what Peck comes to call the "play"--before Gower shifts his attention to education, and takes on the mantle of this historian, a shift discussed in the introduction to Volume 3 (Books V-VII). Peck argues that by Book VII, Gower's legal and historical interests come to the fore, and he appears as the social counselor, concerned above all with the importance of right rule. It is a peculiarity of the non-sequential structure of these three volumes that the introduction to Volume 3 does not end explicitly with reference to the poem's frame--when surely it matters, as Peck makes very clear elsewhere, that the poem situates itself so clearly in Ricardian/ Henrician England. There are many references to this context throughout the three volumes--a student possessing all three would come away with a very clear sense that Gower imagined a public, political role for poetry. But the particular final moment at the end of the introduction to Volume 3 does seem to leave one hanging. I understand the decision to split the CA as has been done, and I can easily imagine, as I hope I've made clear above, how one would make use of Volume 1. I have a little more difficulty putting the three volumes together--I think what I'd most like would be either Volume 1 on its own, or three volumes which offered the poem--and thus Peck's many stimulating readings– in order. There are a few other decisions with which I might quibble. Apart from the side-by-side printing of the Prologue versions discussed above, most of the significant variation between versions is relegated to the notes, sometimes printed out and sometimes simply described– Macaulay's decisions about the relative status of the versions is still largely intact, in other words. Nevertheless, there is much more acknowledgement of variance here than was the case before, and Peck never claims to be providing a new scholarly edition to replace Macaulay's. There are many features of the texts intended to help students--words are glossed in the margins, difficult passages are translated at the bottom of the page, and there is even a brief glossary at the end of the third volume. But one feature of the 1966 excerpted edition, a long discussion of Gower's language, has been largely omitted--some teachers might miss this aspect of the text. These are minor points. There is no doubt that Russell Peck has done teachers and students (of many levels) of Gower a great service by so significantly re-imagining and reworking his old edition. Both the one- and three-volume versions present Gower as a vital, engaging and important poet. We all of us owe Peck and TEAMS a debt of gratitude for providing us the wherewithal to make that case to new generations of students. [SE. Copyright. The John Gower Newsletter. JGN 25.1.] 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 John Gower. Confessio Amantis, 3 vols. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 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 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 Goodall exemplifies Gower's structural and thematic sophistication in CA by discussing the three sets of father-daughter relationship in the tale of Apollonius of Tyre, by assessing the concern with Providence and Fortune in the tale, and by exploring how the "Epilogue" of Book 8 (Venus's eradication of the narrator's love) includes parallels with the tale's resolution of "unkinde" love. In the subplot of Antiochus and his daughter, improper love leads to the death of the wife; because of his love for Thaise, Apollonius's wife is "resurrected." [MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor Goodall, Peter Published Goodall, Peter. "John Gower's 'Apollonius of Tyre': 'Confessio Amantis,' Book VIII." Southern Review 15 (1982), pp. 243-53. ISSN 0038-4526 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 John Gower's 'Apollonius of Tyre': 'Confessio Amantis,' Book VIII Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 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 CA is built of opposites; Genius with responsibilities as a reproductive god and tutelary spirit; war and peace; courtly/Christian; dream-vision of Court of Love leading to vision of heavenly love. Examines tales in groups of lovers who succeed or fail in governing their emotions with reason, and political rulers with reason, or do not. Last chapter devoted to "Apollonius of Tyre" as a lover and ruler who does everything right. [RFY1981; rev. MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor Grellner, Sister Mary Alice. Published Grellner, Sister Mary Alice. John Gower's "Confessio Amantis": A Critical Assessment of Themes and Structure. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1969. Dissertation Abstracts International A30.06 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis 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 John Gower's "Confessio Amantis": A Critical Assessment of Themes and Structure. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 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 second half treats the character development of Amans in CA, showing his change from a superficial human being to a realistic, mature one. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hoben, Sister Marian William. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Published Hoben, Sister Marian William. John Gower's "Confessio Amantis": An Analysis of the Criticism and a Critical Analysis. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania, 1968. Dissertation Abstracts International 30A 1136-37. 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 1968 Title A name given to the resource John Gower's "Confessio Amantis": An Analysis of the Criticism and a Critical Analysis. 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's approaches to structure are not faulty; apparent digressions are actually sound within the concept of right reason and the need for right judgment using reason; considers parts of the CA usually thoughts of as "digressions," i.e., evils of war (Book III), uses of labor (VI), religions of the world (V), and philosophy of Aristotle under guise of the education of Alexander (VII). Author/Editor Author/Editor Tague, Wilma Long. Published Tague, Wilma Long. "John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis': An Hypothesis of Structure." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Wisconsin, 1972. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis 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 John Gower's "Confessio Amantis": An Hypothesis of Structure. 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 In varying levels of detail, Harris discusses six manuscripts that she terms "bad texts," that is, "texts appearing in the form of extracts," where "the intrusions of the medieval manuscript compiler or the editor (or both) are most obvious" (27-28): Princeton University Library Garrett 136 (early fifteenth century), Manchester, Chetham's Library A.7.38 (6696) (early sixteenth century), London, British Library Harley 7333, Oxford, Balliol College 354, New Haven, Beinecke Library Takamiya 32 (Richard Hill's commonplace book), and Cambridge, University Library Ee. ii. 15. She mentions incidentally Oxford, Bodleian Library Rawlinson D 82, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 176/97, Oxford, Trinity College D 29, and San Marino, Huntington Library HM 144 (the latter two she traces to the Augustinian priory at Bisham). In most of these, but not all, the tales have been cut free of the frame narrative, and in many cases retold in prose (32-33). The Balliol, Takamiya, and Cambridge Ee. ii. 15 manuscripts show many similarities, suggesting some form of common origin, "probably a series of extracts rather than a complete copy of Gower's poem" (34). The texts of those delivered in rhyme have been heavily edited, broadly reflecting, Harris opines, changes over time in preferred forms of rhyme (35-39). She concludes: "In so far as the intrusions of the medieval editors in Gower's poetry are made on purely aesthetic grounds they can be said to provide the earliest true criticism of the 'Confessio.' In this lies the chief virtue of bad texts. That they should also provide information on the history of poetics was a virtue hardly to be expected" (40). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Harris, Kate. Published Harris, Kate. "John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis': The Virtues of Bad Texts." In Derek Pearsall, ed. Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England (York: York Medieval Press, 1983). Pp. 27-40. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 John Gower's "Confessio Amantis": The Virtues of Bad Texts 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 Review Argues that although Gower's story is based on versions in the "Roman de Troie" and Ovid's "Metamorphoses," he makes his own tale by emending his sources freely, focusing his story on the lovers, and Jason's betrayal. original version in Japanese, with an English abstract. [RFY1981; rev. MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor Itô, Masayoshi. Published Itô, Masayoshi. "John Gower's 'Jason and Medea--A Story of Golden Love." Bulletin of the Faculty of Education (Shizuoka University) 25 (1974): 78-89. English version in Ito's John Gower: The Medieval Poet (Tokyo: Shinzaki Shorin, 1976), 80-100. 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 John Gower's "Jason and Medea"--A Story of Golden Love. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 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 Runstedler, Curtis. Published Runstedler, Curtis. "John Gower's Alchemical Afterlife in Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652)." Neophilologus 104 (2020): 263-81. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Review Runstedler explores "the ways in which Gower's alchemy was received by early modern readers in literary and alchemical traditions." He describes Gower's presentation of alchemy in Book IV of the "Confessio Amantis" and Elias Ashmole's commentary on Book IV in "Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum," focusing on the philosophical and moral emphases of the practice in both works, and arguing that Ashmole decontextualizes Book IV, reproduces some sixteenth-century notions of Gower, and, as a result, misinterprets Gower as an "alchemical master." Runstedler outlines the withering of Gower's poetic reputation in the sixteenth century, identifies similarities between Gower's views on alchemy and Thomas Norton's in the "Ordinall of Alchemy" (1477), and maintains that Ashmole's work reflects Gower's high reputation as a practicing alchemist and as Chaucer's Master" (Eliaas's term) and "mentor" (Runstedler's) in the science. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 38.2.] 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 John Gower's Alchemical Afterlife in Elias Ashmole's "Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum" (1652). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 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 Knapp proposes an overall assessment of Gower's work, paying particular attention to what he calls its "mechanical allegory"--a concept he borrows from Coleridge, who opposed it as a poetic type to "a poetics based upon the symbol," i.e., Romanticism as we have come to know it. Such mechanical allegory, to quote Coleridge, was "but a translation of abstract notions into a picture-language which is itself nothing but an abstraction from objects of the senses." Knapp then "considers what drew Gower to the mechanical side of things," arguing that Coleridge's notion is "central to several of [Gower's] most interesting solutions to problems of poetic representation." He looks at the "Mirour de l'Omme," the "Vox Clamantis," and the "Confessio Amantis" to observe how Gower's "mechanical allegory" functions in each. The M) he finds "exemplifies the significance of naming in the poetic project, along with its so-called voicing," pointing to the repetitions of "je te resemble" preceding descriptions of Sin (e.g., ll. 9949, 9961, 9973) as evidence, in that this naming moment "is clearly meant to be a climactic one." It is, however, "entirely devoid of narrative content," showing us instead "what we might call 'a drama of naming'" [emphasis his]. Gower turns to hand similarly a non/narratorial "je" (an example of what A.C. Spearing's termed "autography") to create not a "speaking subject" but a "rhetorical device for bundling together the rather miscellaneous catalogue form of the 'dits'." Such a "je," like the "drama" of naming fits Coleridge's notion of the "mechanical" because each "foregrounds the lack of organic connection between abstraction and image, and instead revels in the drama of the poet's act of naming." Knapp turns to what he calls the "'voicing' of the poem," seeking to explain the MO's "tripartite structure" in terms of the shift from the "je" of the first section to the "vox populi" in the second. (He never addresses the third, Marian section.) The VC he finds, somewhat controversially, also tripartite, taking the "Cronica Tripertita" to be, not a poem composed separately, but as an intended third section of a single VC--a kind of "eighth book," one might say. Thus, Knapp sees Gower "sandwiching . . . the estates satire material . . . between two explicitly historical narratives," which "must suggest an intent here to tie the satire very closely to actual historical reality." Asking why this should be, Knapp notices that this historical reality, particularly in the "Visio," is ekphrastic to a degree uncommon in Gower's work: his transformation of the rebelling peasants into animals "creates a world essentially without speech, a pure vision of movement and destruction." Such a wordless world "renders the agency of the poet null"--and produces a "mechanical allegory" which facilitates "Gower's project in this work, which is precisely to attack a historical event of agency without language or reason in the interests of establishing the primacy of the voice of ethical satire at the center of the work." As for the CA: "the grafting of the theological discourse of sin/ethics onto 'fin amor' . . . is also organized around a central representational difficulty: . . . how to represent the 'impairing of the world' that is crucial to the historical dimension of Gower's diagnostic scheme in the Prologue." Knapp focusses on sculpture as a medium of discussion, arguing that Gower (unlike Chaucer) rarely presents images two-dimensionally, preferring the three-dimensional. This dissimilarity with Chaucer Knapp explains as "two different semantic fields" surrounding "image," with Gower reading it theologically, "nearly as a synonym for 'icon'" (Knapp's emphasis), "honored in orthodox practice and attacked by the Lollards." He then examines various statues appearing in the CA: the account of the pagan gods in Book V, Nectanabus' use of the wax image to seduce Olympias in Book VI, finding Nectanabus an "anti-Pygmalion, one who sculpts not to create something of surprising vitality but rather something that is made in order to melt away," and ultimately the Man of Metal in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar--perhaps the best (in the sense of most obvious) example of "mechanical allegory." In the destruction of the Man of Metal, Knapp especially, but also in all of Gower's statues, "a strange projected temporality" that helps him read the CA as presenting "an object world caught between the quick and the dead." The CA then insists "that the entropic drift of history can never be eluded." [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Knapp, Ethan. Published Knapp, Ethan. "John Gower's Allegories." In Oxford Handbooks Online (2017): n.p. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935338.013.59 Gower Subject Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis 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 John Gower's Allegories. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 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. "John Gower's Audience: The Ballades." Chaucer Review 40 (2005), pp. 81-105. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Cinkante Balades Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review Gower's Cinkante Balades must in all likelihood be dated after 1385, not, as so many have believed, from Gower's youth, for all but two of the ballades consist of three identically rhymed stanzas plus an envoy, "the form that became standard for ballades only in the last years of the fourteenth century, influenced especially by the theories and practices of Eustache Deschamps? (82). This is just one of the many new insights into the origin and audience of both CB and Traitié that Yeager offers in this new essay, a complement to his piece in Echard's "Companion to Gower" (JGN 24.1), in which he provided the first convincing description of the thematic and narrative unity of CB. Christine de Pisan's Livre de Cent Balades was both a token of and an inspiration for the great fashion for the ballade in the early 1390s which, given the extensive contacts between French and English during the period, would certainly have been communicated to both poets and readers in England as well. Chaucer's ballades might well all date from this period, Yeager suggests. Traitié, since it does not use the envoy, is likely to be the earlier of Gower's two collections, probably dating from about 1390; and pointing to its affinities with CA – its similar use of Latin glosses, its use of ten of the same narratives as CA, its appearance within MSS of CA – Yeager argues that it was originally written for inclusion with CA, probably in the original Ricardian version. He thus has little patience with the notion that the work was meant as a wedding gift for Agnes Groundolf, pointing out that, with her Flemish name, there is little reason to suppose that she would have been the recipient of a composition in French. CB is more difficult to date precisely. In the only surviving copy it is preceded by a dedication to Henry IV, already king. That MS cannot, however, be the original presentation copy, Yeager points out, because of its lack of decoration and because of the diversity of its contents, lacking any single unifying theme. He offers some speculations on how the MS might have been assembled. More importantly, the separation of the existing copy from the original composition of its contents allows him to suggest that CB might have been first presented to Henry early in the 1390's, when interest in the ballade was at its highest, and even perhaps in 1393, when Gower is known to have received from Henry his collar of SS; and it also allows him to infer that the work might well have circulated beyond its royal patron. For in the last part of his essay, Yeager argues that neither collection should be viewed as intended for any particular reader but as addressed instead to contemporary poets, as Gower took up the challenge to demonstrate his mastery of the new form and responded with a strong statement of his own views on the morality of love, and to posterity, as part of the same attempt to secure his future reputation that is evident in the poet's colophon and in the design of his tomb. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society: JGN 24.2] 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 John Gower's Audience: The Ballades 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 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 Provides an edition of "Cinkante Balades," with line-by-line English translation, an Introduction, and Notes, available as a downloadable PDF. Author/Editor Author/Editor Nicholson, Peter, ed. and trans. Published John Gower Society website:<br />https://johngower.org/john-gowers-cinkante-balades/<br />Accessed 22 February 2024 Gower Subject Cinkante Balades 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/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021 Title A name given to the resource John Gower's 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 Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Murphy disputes the existence of a medieval English rhetorical tradition. Despite the fact that the CA contains the "first known discussion of rhetoric in the English language" (402), Gower had little or no actual knowledge of the subject and borrowed his material quite blindly from Brunetto Latini's Li Livres dou Tresor. Murphy in particular critiques Robertson B. Daniels, "Rhetoric in Gower's 'To King Henry the Fourth, in Praise of Peace,'" for suggesting that Gower borrowed numerous rhetorical figures (colores) from rhetorical textbooks. According to Murphy, use of such figures can easily be explained by the abundant use of grammatical texts in English grammar schools. Murphy also disputes Daniel's argument that Gower's word-play on the term acephalus in VC 3.955-56 (an example of annominatio) shows a clear allusion to a passage in Geoffrey of Vinsauf. After listing similar puns in other works, he concludes: "It would seem that a parallel involving only one word will not suffice to prove Gower's reliance on the Poetria Nova" (407). As for Gower's discussion of rhetoric in Book 7 of the CA, Murphy argues that Gower's ignorance is illustrated by the fact that he does not even know that "Tullius" is the same person as "Cithero," or that the term "colour" has a technical meaning for the rhetorician. Gower derives almost all of his knowledge from the Tresor, the exception being the credit given to Aristotle for writing a work on rhetoric "when it seems apparent that Gower himself knew of no such book" (409). The latter detail is likely caused by the influence of the Secretum Secretorum. From the evidence of the Confessio, then, there is little evidence "that there was a viable rhetorical tradition in fourteenth-century England similar to that in France or Italy, which had given rise to vernacular treatises on rhetoric in the preceding century" (411). [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Murphy, James J Published Murphy, James J. "John Gower's Confessio Amantis and the First Discussion of Rhetoric in the English Language." Philological Quarterly 41 (1962), pp. 401-411. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification In Praise of Peace 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 John Gower's Confessio Amantis and the First Discussion of Rhetoric in the English Language Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 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 a brief but suggestive essay, Sadlek examines Gower's allusions to the "labor of love" within the framework of contemporary ideologies of labor. The fourteenth century was a time of intense interest in work issues and in the nature of labor, which is reflected in an expansion of the lexicon and in the use of terms such as "besinesse" and "occupacion" with a new, largely positive connotation. Gower's poem, Sadlek argues, represents a "site of action" in which conflicting contemporary ideologies are simultaneously present. He identifies a "traditional medieval ideology of work" in the frame of the Seven Deadly Sins and its numerous branches. In Book 4, "aristocratic voices" defend idleness as a form of labor in the case of love, and knighthood as a more appropriate form of labor for worthy men. There is also the "voice of a new work ethic, which insists that legitimate work much also produce concrete results" (p. 157). None of these can be identified exclusively with either Genius or Amans. A different set of issues emerges in the poem's conclusion, in which both Amans and Venus revert to a definition of "love's labor" as successful procreation, a notion rooted in RR but also consistent with a "production oriented" work ideology. Gower criticizes wasteful idleness in love, Sadlek concludes, but he does so from a complex position that represents the changing labor ideologies of his time. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Sadlek, Gregory M Published Sadlek, Gregory M. "John Gower's Confessio Amantis, Ideology, and the 'Labor' of 'Love's Labor'." In Re-visioning Gower. Ed. Yeager, R.F. Charlotte, NC: Pegasus Press, 1998, pp. 147-58. 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 John Gower's Confessio Amantis, Ideology, and the 'Labor' of 'Love's Labor'. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Pegasus Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998 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 examines CB and CA from the perspective of French medieval love poetry, and finds in both cases that Gower's work is oversimplified when it is viewed merely as a rejection of fin' amor. The French poetry that Gower drew upon itself was more complex, more self-reflexive and self-critical, than such a judgment implies, he argues. But Gower's work too is also rich and complex. Calin offers a brief examination of CB, emphasizing its diversity of theme and its attempt to reconcile fin' amor and marriage, pointing out where Gower adheres to and departs from the conventions of his French predecessors. He also emphasizes the Frenchness of CA, and sees Gower as the "disciple" of Jean de Meun, Machaut, and Froissart, adopting rather than repudiating the "French courtly vision" in his complex, sophisticated and above all humorous way of treating questions of love. Calin gives a lengthy discussion of the comic potential generated by the juxtaposition of the penitential with the erotic, by the use (and misuse) of exempla, and by the contradictions inherent in the figures of Genius and Amans, giving particular attention to the ending of the poem. Like his most important French predecessors and also like his friend Chaucer, he concludes, Gower "emphasizes discrepancies," and creates a "comic masterpiece" which sums up "two centuries of courtly debate on man, woman, and desire" (p. 109). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Calin, William Published Calin, William. "John Gower's Continuity in the Tradition of French Fin' Amor." Mediaevalia 16 (1993), pp. 91-111. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Cinkante Balades 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 John Gower's Continuity in the Tradition of French Fin' Amor 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 Surveys Gower's surviving works in his other vernacular. After giving careful attention to their survival in MS, Yeager has much to say about the quality of both Gower's verse and prose, about the uniqueness of conception of his works, particularly MO and CB, and about the significance of the fact that these works are in French. MO, he notes, has a breadth and ambition unprecedented in any of the works that have been identified as its possible sources, but it is unified, first of all by its "envelope of amorous address" (143), the invocation of "chascun amant" at the beginning, and the lyrical prayer to the virgin at the end; and second, by its examination, through is description of the vices and virtues, of good and bad desire. CB has a narrative structure centered on the poet-narrator's decision to absent himself for the sake of his lady's reputation, which leads to a more complete union based on trust and actual devotion rather than mere desire. In both these works, Gower "use[s] the culture of French courtly writing against itself" (144): he transcends the "essential immorality" (147) of courtly literature and reclaims it for legitimate love. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower's French." In A Companion to Gower. Ed. Echard, Siân. Cambridge: Brewer, 2004, pp. 137-51. Gower Subject 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 John Gower's French 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 Yeager's new essay – in this collection of studies on the use of French in England during the Middle English period – captures in one place the most important of the research he has presented in three earlier articles on Gower's works in French (see JGN 20 no. 1, 24 no. 2, and 26 no. 2) and adds some important new details, particularly on the "Traitié." MO, he believes, was written in two stages: the largest part of the work was composed in French on the model of Henry of Lancaster's "Livre des Seyntz Medicines" and for the same aristocratic audience; the concluding prayer to Mary, however, was added to make the work more suitable for the Austin canons of St Mary Overeys with whom Gower had taken up residence after 1378. The "Cinkante Balades" is the later of Gower's two ballade collections as evidenced by its use of an envoy, on the model of Deschamps rather than Machaut; and conceived as a response to the popular "Livre des Cent Ballades," it was addressed to an audience of "French chevalier poets" (142) of the sort with whom the future Henry IV associated during the early 1390s. The "Traitié" is the earlier composition: Yeager has little patience with the notion that it was composed in 1397 as a wedding gift for the poet's new bride. As evidence of its readership, Yeager reconsiders the identity of the "Quixley" who names himself as the author of the English translation of the "Traitié" in BL MS Stowe 951. Rather than the small landowner chosen by MacCracken, Yeager offers instead a Robert de Quixley, prior of Nostell Priory, near York, between 1393 and 1427. Nostell was also house of Austin canons, suggesting both the nature of Gower's original readership – identical to that which Yeager proposes for the completed MO – and the means of transmission to the translator. The very fact of the translation also attests to the decline in the use of French after 1399. Yeager notes that Gower's only known composition in French after Henry's accession is the pair of ballades that preface the "Cinkante Balades" in the sole surviving manuscript, dedicating the collection to the new king, and there, his reference to the Latin verses that follow the two ballades as being in "perfit langage" is itself a comment on the status of French and Gower's choice to use either English or Latin for all of the work he composed during the final decade of his life. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 29.2]. Reprinted in virtually identical form, in Dutton, Elisabeth, ed., with John Hines and R.F. Yeager, "John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition." Westfield Medieval Studies, 3. Cambridge: Brewer, 2010, pp. 304-14. Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower's French and his Readers." In Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c.1100-c.1500. Ed. Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn and Collette, Caroline and Kowaleski, Maryanne and Mooney, Linne R and Putter, Ad and Trotter, David. York: York Medieval Press, 2009, pp. 135-45. ISBN 9781903153277 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz Manuscripts and Textual 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 John Gower's French and his Readers 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 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 This essay is virtually identical to the previously published essay of the same title (In "Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c.1100-c.1500. }Ed. Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn and Collette, Caroline and Kowaleski, Maryanne and Mooney, Linne R and Putter, Ad and Trotter, David. (York: York Medieval Press, 2009, pp. 135-45.) In it, Yeager sums up the most important of his earlier work on Gower's use of French and adds some new details, particularly on the "Traitié." MO, he believes, was written in two stages: the largest part of the work was composed in French on the model of Henry of Lancaster's "Livre des Seyntz Medicines" and for the same aristocratic audience; the concluding prayer to Mary, however, was added to make the work more suitable for the Austin canons of St Mary Overeys with whom Gower had taken up residence after 1378. CB is the later of Gower's two ballade collections as evidenced by its use of an envoy, and conceived as a response to the popular "Livre des Cent Ballades," it was addressed to an audience of "French chevalier poets" (142) of the sort with whom the future Henry IV associated during the early 1390s. The "Traitié" is the earlier composition. As evidence of its readership, Yeager reconsiders the identity of the "Quixley" who names himself as the author of the English translation in BL MS Stowe 951. Rather than the small landowner chosen by MacCracken, Yeager offers instead a Robert de Quixley, prior of Nostell Priory, near York, between 1393 and 1427. Nostell was also house of Austin canons, suggesting both the nature of Gower's original readership – identical to that which Yeager proposes for the completed MO--and the means of transmission to the translator. The very fact of the translation also attests to the decline in the use of French after 1399. Yeager notes that Gower's only known composition in French after Henry's accession is the pair of ballades that preface the CB in the sole surviving manuscript, dedicating the collection to the new king, and there, his reference to the Latin verses that follow the two ballades as being in "perfit langage" is itself a comment on the status of French and Gower's choice to use either English or Latin for all of the work he composed during the final decade of his life. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 30.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published Yeager, R. F. "John Gower's French and His Readers." In John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition. Ed. Dutton, Elisabeth, and Hines, John and Yeager, R. F. Cambridge: Brewer, 2010, pp. 304-14. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz Manuscripts and Textual 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 John Gower's French and His Readers. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 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 paper addresses a scholarly lacuna identified by Thomas Cable (1998: 39), who has complained of the "lack of phonological and metrical concern in studies whose subject was Gower." Werthmüller begins by assuming that, in the bulk of Gower's English verse, grammatically-determined rhythm (here referred to as "linguistic stress") aligns with metre. She then analyses a range of forms to show how Gower deploys both Germanic and Romance patterns of emphasis within his iambic measure. Especially useful in this regard are a pair of tables (pp.429-450). In the first, Werthmüller lists a set of words that she considers tended to be stressed on the second syllable in Gower's English (e.g. "desese," "merveille," "fortune," "nature," etc.), in the manner of French, contrasting with a second set of forms where Germanic-style stress on the first syllable seems commonly to have been used, even when the forms in question are etymologically derived from French (e.g. "vertu," "meschief," "tresoun"). It is interesting that all these usages seem to have been prototypical rather than invariable; "merveille," for instance, seems to have received stress on the second element in 84.6% of tokens, but that still leaves 15.4% of occurrences with stress on the first syllable, while "conseil," by contrast, was front-stressed in 75.7% of occasions, but stressed on the second syllable in 24.3% of tokens. And the form "peril," a fairly common noun in the CA, seems to have stressed equally frequently (50:50) in both ways. Some contrasts are drawn with Chaucer's practice, e.g. with "batailles," where Gower it seems tends to stress the second element whereas Chaucer prototypically emphasises the first syllable. The author also makes some suggestive comments on Gower's conservative retention of –e (which she contrasts with perceived greater Chaucerian apocope), and on the appearance--albeit fairly limited--of prototypically "low-stress" words, e.g. "the," in positions where, metrically, strong stress might be expected. The paper is largely descriptive in its orientation, and, rather controversially, sets aside issues of poetic motivation for rhythmical variation against the metrical norm. It is avowedly a preliminary piece of work, flagging at the end the need for further research of this kind across the whole range of Middle English poetry: "It is my view that the serious scrutinisation of the interaction of metre/phonology on the one hand, and syntax on the other, can ensue only after this task had been at least partially completed by scholars of M[iddle] E[nglish]" (434). Reference: Cable, Thomas 1998. "Metrical similarities between Gower and certain sixteenth-century poets," in Robert F. Yeager (ed.), Re-visioning Gower (Asheville: Pegasus), 39-48. [JJS. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 38.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Werthmüller, Gyöngyi. Published Werthmüller, Gyöngyi. "John Gower's Germanic and Romance English (A Phonological/Metrical Analysis)." Tanulmányok Nyelvtudományi Doktori Iskola, ed. Bárdosi Vilmos (Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University, 2012), 419-36. ISBN: 9789632843605. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Language and Word 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 John Gower's Germanic and Romance English (A Phonological/Metrical Analysis). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 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 explores the two fifteenth-century Iberian manuscripts of Gower's "Confessio Amantis," first detailing the twentieth-century discovery of the two manuscripts, and second, based upon peculiar physical elements and content of the manuscripts, proposing the possible identities and motivations of the Castilian and Portuguese patrons of the translations. Yeager begins by narrating the twentieth-century discovery of Escorial MS g.II.19 and Madrid MS Real Biblioteca II-3088. Gower links the impetus of the translations to John of Gaunt's invasion of Spain in 1386, the marriage of his elder daughter Philippa to king João I of Portugal in 1387, and the marriage of his daughter Katherine (Catalina) to prince Henry (Enrique) III, the son and heir of Juan I of Castile, in 1388. Yeager argues the Portuguese translation was most likely made for João I, given his (and his wife Philippa's) love of literature. The purpose of the Castilian translation, however, is not as clear. Yeager suggests these manuscript versions in particular would not have been meant for a royal personage, at least based upon the physical aspects of the manuscripts, given their plain and modest format and layout. Both of these manuscripts, Yeager suggests, represent "workaday versions" of the poem, which may be of particular scholarly interest since they "provide tangible evidence that the 'Confessio Amantis' was known, was read, and was in demand outside of the royal families, beyond Castile and Lisbon even to Africa, by lower-ranking Iberian readers in some numbers" (97). The essay concludes with a discussion of further avenues of research awaiting the study of these manuscripts, including the relationship between the CA and late medieval and early modern Iberian literary production, Philippa of Lancaster's possible connection to the Portuguese translation, and possible parallels between Gower's popularity in Iberia and that of Christine de Pizan, whose "Le Livre de trois virtues" was also translated into Portuguese. [BWG. Copyright, The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 16 (2009): 91-101. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 John Gower's Iberian Footprint: The Manuscripts. 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 "Recent critical studies of the Confessio Amantis tend to see the tales as reflections of the major thematic patterns of the poem while ignoring their more immediate function as illustrations of the vices and virtues. And yet, as a comparison of John Gower's second exemplum contra presumption with its source makes clear, it is the nature of the particular sub-sin or virtue being illustrated that determines what other functions a given exemplum will serve. For this reason, any reading of the poem must begin by placing the tales within the sin framework before expanding to consider them in other contexts. A similar emphasis on individual morality is evident in Gower's social and political theories, making the exemplum, with its multileveled construction, a fitting vehicle for Gower's personal philosophy." [Author's summary. JGN 3.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Shaw, Judith Published Shaw, Judith. "John Gower's Illustrative Tales." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 84 (1983), pp. 437-447. ISSN 0028-3754 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 John Gower's Illustrative Tales. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 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 Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower's Images: 'The Tale of Constance' and 'The Man of Law's Tale." In Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V.A. Kolve. Ed. Yeager, R.F and Morse, Charlotte. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 2001, pp. 525-557. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Review Yeager takes as his starting point, in this essay that appears in a festschrift for V.A. Kolve, the latter's by now famous re-examination of the imagery of the Man of Law's Tale, with his discovery both of its primarily visual quality and of the rich layers of allegorical significance that it contains; and he applies Kolve's methods to the study of Gower's version of the same tale. Gower too was capable of arresting visual images: Yeager uses the examples of the massacre at the feast in CA 2.688-702, which is narrated from the point of view of Constance, the only survivor, and the tale of "Acis and Galatea" that comes earlier in Book 2 and that establishes in very concrete terms the signficances of fire and of water that will resonate throughout the later tale. But Gower's method is ordinarily not so visual, Yeager argues. Instead, "Gower relies on the working of his words qua words, on nuance and lexical suggestion. His images are briefer than Chaucer's, crossing more quickly sub oculos, alerting the consciousness scarcely at all while they creep into the memory, accumulating there nonetheless. Ultimately, these light images create a resonant sub-text which, once noticed, acts as effectively to the same purpose as Chaucer's more elaborate ones do, drawing us out of the literal towards higher levels of meaning" (527-28). He illustrates this thesis with some aptly chosen examples of particular words that in repetition acquire a meaningful resonance: "stiere," in the scenes in which Constance is set adrift on the sea, which subtly but effectively invokes God's presence as navigator; "good," which refers primarily to literal "goods" but which also establishes a contrast between Constance and her detractors and enables the depiction of the heroine as a representative of the church; "kepe," which is used particularly ironically by Domilde in 2.1036 but which elsewhere establishes the parallel between Constance's role and God's; the notion of motherhood, which Yeager points out occurs in some unusual contexts in the tale but which fits into the patterns created by the other imagery; and "joie," which especially at the end draws together the literal and the allegorical dimensions of Constance's story. The dominant recurring image in the tale, as in Chaucer's, is the sea, but Yeager establishes how differently the two poets used it: "In 'The Man of Law's Tale,' as Kolve has shown, it is 'the sea of this world' first and last, a medium alien to the ship of the Church, which alone provides safe transport to the hoped-for harbor. In 'The Tale of Constance,' however, the sea is, yes, the world, and something more--a medium of the Divine embrace and revelation (as water in every form always is in this tale, and generally in Book II of the Confessio Amantis), a physical expression of the power of a benevolent God, disguised to all but the truly faithful as a place of death, not life; so also the Christian mystery of baptism promises a 'dying' which in fact is the portal to a resurrected life; so Acis dies and is buried, to rise again as a spring recollective of the promise kept by the life and death of Christ; and so does Constance, twice come from the water, take on a kind of resurrection, as well" (550). As this last passage makes clear, this is a subtle essay, not well represented in summary. Insightful not only as a reading of this particular tale, it also, through the connection to "Acis and Galatea," opens up the possibility of a re-reading of Book 2 in its entirety, and here one has to feel that Yeager has missed a rather large chance. The book ends with the tale of "Constantine and Sylvester," with its obvious verbal and historical links to the tale of Constance in the protagonists' names, in their settings, and in their roles in the founding of the church, but even more importantly for Yeager's argument, in the rich significance given to baptism in the later tale, which echoes back upon the very episodes that Yeager describes so well in "Constance." Perhaps – and indeed one truly hopes – he has saved the exploration of these obvious connections for a future essay. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 20.2] 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 John Gower's Images: 'The Tale of Constance' and 'The Man of Law's Tale Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Pegasus Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001 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 Barrington argues that in order to understand Gower's strategies of advice to Henry IV in "In Praise of Peace," one must see him not merely in the role of royal advisor but also as legal advocate. The poem is marked, she maintains, by habits or word and thought deriving from Gower's own training as a man of law. She counts no fewer than 125 words in the poem that belong to the legal vocabulary of the day and that have a precise legal meaning, and 25 instances in which, following a practice common in Middle English legal documents, a legal term derived from Anglo-Norman is paired with one derived from Anglo-Saxon (on the model of "null and void"). Procedurally she finds echoes of a writ in the Latin proem, and more interestingly, of the typical form of common law pleadings in what she sees as an alternation of voices in the sections marked off by large initials in the only surviving copy of the poem. Finally, she points to the poet's "elocutionary gestures," by which he establishes his own position as the king's counselor while also positioning Henry in the role of judge, consistent with the most significant bit of advice to the king, that he adhere to his promise to restore the rule of law. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 30.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Barrington, Candace Gower Subject Language and Word Studies In Praise of Peace Biography of Gower Published Barrington, Candace. "John Gower's Legal Advocacy and 'In Praise of Peace'." In John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition. Ed. Dutton, Elisabeth, and Hines, John, and Yeager, R.F. Cambridge: Brewer, 2010, pp. 112-25. 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/. 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 Title A name given to the resource John Gower's Legal Advocacy and '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 Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Includes the following: discussions of the tales of Acteon, Acis and Galatea, Deianera and Nessus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Phebus and Daphne, Pygmalion, Iphis, Icarus, Ceyx and Alceone, Argus and Mercury, Iphis and Araxarathen, Midas, Echo, Tereus, Neptune and Cornix, Leucothoe, variously by Beidler, Carole Koepke Brown, Nicolette Stasko, Karl A. Zipf, Jr., John B. Gaston, Douglas L. Lepley, Judith C. G. Moran, Natalie Epinger Ruyak; chapters on "Diabolical Treachery in the "Tale of Nectanabus" (Beidler), "Thomas of Kent's Account of the Birth of Alexander (Patricia Innerbichler de Bellis), and "Julius Valerius' Account of the Birth of Alexander: Text and Translation" (Enda S. deAngeli). [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Beidler, Peter G,, ed. Published Beidler, Peter G,, ed. "John Gower's Literary Transfomations in the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations." Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982 ISBN 0819125962 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 John Gower's Literary Transfomations in the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available University Press of America, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 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 Review Georgiana Donavin argues that in Gower's CA "[rhetoric's] sphere is governed by the almighty Word, imbuing verbal magic with divine creative force and modeling a benevolent speech act to which rhetoric can aspire." She contrasts Gower's tales in Book VI with "a benevolent rhetoric of enchantment" found in Book VII. Gower's rhetoric relies on the Augustinian concept of the Word, which is invested with "divine influence" and has the "ultimate suasive influence." Donavin asserts that "[The Word] is at once the basis of all incantations and the channel for Christian purpose in rhetoric." She then surveys Gower's "complex characterizations of magicians" throughout CA, beginning with the particularly negative portraits in Book VI. But then in Book VII, she claims "Genius moves toward a more positive view of verbal magic by connecting spells and 'carectes' to the holy and inventive Word" and he rejects the models put forth in Book VI. "It is the supernatural W/word that becomes the cornerstone of Gower's definition of rhetoric," Donavin continues, and "The mystical W/word, necessary for all incantations, render the magical Christological." Repetition is key for Gower and "has the potential to enact an 'imitatio Christi'." Finally, Donavin concludes, "In Gower's rhetoric lecture in Book VII of the CA, the Word casts a spell and is God's spell, potentially reinventing the truth for every speaker and transforming the mind of anyone who has an ear." [JGS. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Donavin, Georgiana. Published Donavin, Georgiana. "John Gower's Magical Rhetoric." Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media, 6.2 (2020): n.p. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis 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 John Gower's Magical Rhetoric. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 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 No manuscript of the CA can be dated earlier than 1399, the year of Henry IV's usurpation (91). Manuscripts containing the CA (forty-nine full MSS and nine fragments) show textual variants that have been used to support a theory of two or three authorial "recensions," as laudatory references to Richard II have been replaced by tributes to Henry Bolingbroke (91-93). More recently, the "recension" model has been questioned as unlikely on several grounds (93-94). The poet's only other work in English, "In Praise of Peace," survives in the pro-Henrician BL Add. MS 59495 (formerly MS Trentham, dated 1399) which may have been owned and even partially inscribed by Gower himself (95). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 37.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fredell, Joel. Published Fredell, Joel. "John Gower's Manuscripts in Middle English." In Ana Sáez-Hidalgo, Brian Gastle, and R. F. Yeager, eds. The Routledge Research Companion to John Gower (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 91-96. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 John Gower's Manuscripts in Middle English. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 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 Prints Cinkante Balades and Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz, basing texts on Roxburghe edition (1818), and collating with MSS. Bodley 294, Fairfax 3, All Souls 98, Wadham College 13, Harley 3869, and Trinity College 32. Author/Editor Author/Editor Stengel, Edmund, ed. Published Stengel, Edmund, ed. John Gower's Minnesang und Ehezuchtbüchlein: LXXII Anglonormannische Balladen. Marburg: Elwert, 1886. Gower Subject Cinkante Balades Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz, 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's Minnesang und Ehezuchtbüchlein: LXXII Anglonormannische Balladen. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1886 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 An edition of MO, based on Macaulay (1899-1902), but re-done, with introduction and full glossary (where Macaulay gives definitions for only one form of the word Troendle gives all--2300 English definitions. Latin quotations traced and translated; new notes. [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Troendle, Dorothy Fazackerley. Published Troendle, Dorothy Fazackerley. John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme. Ph.D. Dissertation. Brown University, 1960. Unrestricted access at https://www.proquest.com/docview/301894670. Accessed June 15, 2022. Gower Subject Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) 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 John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960 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 Zuraikat and Rawashdeh compare Ovid's narrative of Acteon, embedded in the larger history of Cadmus and his house ("Metamorphoses III), to Gower's "Tale of Acteon" (CA, I.333-87). They present Gower's project as "a blend of 'narration' and 'focalization', where 'narration' is the telling of a story that simultaneously respects the needs and enlists the cooperation of its audience and 'focalization' is the submission of (potentially limitless) narrative information to a perspectival filter" (235). Thus they find that Gower is "aware of the great difference between Confessio Amantis's moral context and "Metamorphoses'" mythological one." Consequently, he "uses his borrowed material according to his poem's moral purpose. He does not passively paraphrase his classical sources; rather, he innovatively rewrites them in light of the Confessio's moral texture" (235). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Zuraikat, Malek J. Rawashdeh, Faisel I. Published Zuraikat, Malek J., and Faisal I. Rawashdeh. "John Gower's Moral Adaptation of Ovid's 'Tale of Acteon'." International Journal of Arabic-English Studies 19 (2019): 127-38. 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 John Gower's Moral Adaptation of Ovid's "Tale of Acteon." 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 Perhaps the most ambitious book on Gower ever written. In it, Yeager provides a wealth of insight into each of Gower's major works in his attempt to define Gower's "poetic," the assumptions about language and poetry that give coherency to his writing. His first chapter, "Stylistics," deals with the poet's attitudes towards language and his craft. Gower had a deep concern for language, Yeager asserts, citing as evidence his care for the correctness of his texts. And his comments on poetry, particularly in the opening lines of CA, reveal both a consciousness of style in relation to audience, and a strong sense of the poet's duty both to his country and to his language, echoing similar statements by Gower's admired models, Virgil and Ovid. Gower took both responsibilities quite seriously, and what appears most conventional about his verse -- his choice of English, his use of octosyllables, and the unvarying regularity of his meter and his rhyme -- Yeager attributes to his conscious attempt to create a poetic language that was adequate to his highest moral concerns. Yeager describes Gower's metrical practice in particular as a novelty and experiment, a conscious response to the metrical discord of his English predecessors and an attempt to set new standards for the language. The remainder of the chapter demonstrates that metrical regularity alone did not inhibit Gower in any important way. Yeager examines the poet's manipulation of pace and tone, his ability to create different "voices" for his two principals, and his use of alliteration, rhyme, and punning, illustrating at the same time both Gower's consciousness of language itself and his great skill in linking sound and sense. The second chapter, "Gower's Lines," extends the discussion of Gower's use of language to his relation with and attitude towards his predecessors, focusing on VC, MO, CB, and Traitié. The model for Gower's construction of his verse, Yeager maintains, is provided by his use of extracts from Latin authors in VC, following the example of the late classical cento. Giving the best available account of the manner in which VC was composed, Yeager rejects the notion of Gower as mere plagiarist, and describes him as an innovative experimenter with cento technique who consciously adopted the poetry of the classical past into a new context and for a different purpose. This technique of the cento is reflected in the "patchwork" construction of both MO and CA, and more importantly, in the self-conscious way in which Gower adopts borrowed language in each of his other poems. In MO, CB, and Traitié, the sources are not classical, but the French love poetry of Gower's immediate predecessors, particularly the Roman de la Rose. In the indelicacy of his language and the amorality of his presentation of love, Jean de Meun would have represented to Gower the abandonment of all of the moral responsibility that Gower felt was incumbent on the poet. His response was to adopt the vocabulary but to reject the ethos, and to turn the language of love poetry to higher ends. In MO, his strategy is reflected in the poem's structure: Yeager describes MO as an "anatomy of desire" set within "an envelope of amorous address," speaking to all lovers in the opening lines, but turning to the Virgin at the end, as the poet/narrator finally achieves his true calling (anticipating also Yeager's account of the structure of CA). In CB and Traitié, Gower's borrowing of the verse form and vocabulary of courtly poetry is more palpable, but his rejection of its values is all the more direct, as he "rehabilitates" the language of love in order to celebrate chaste marriage. Chapter three, "Transformations," focuses on Gower's adoption of narrative material in CA. Beginning with some of Gower's characteristic habits as a storyteller -- his use of "pointing," his rare use of visual imagery, and the ways in which he depicts a character's inner thought -- Yeager emphasizes both the deliberateness of effect and the "moral resonance" that Gower achieves with sometimes limited resources. He takes particular issue with C.S. Lewis, who found Gower little interested in his characters' mental processes, and points out how frequently and effectively Gower uses action to reveal cognition, especially in the case of Amans. Turning to broader issues in Gower's use of story material, Yeager classifies the exempla of CA into five different types according to the degree of transformation from the source and the positive or negative way in which the tale serves the announced moral lesson. He then gives a close reading of "Albinus and Rosemund" and "Tereus," illustrating how the poet, by his excisions and additions, has shaped the stories to the purposes of his frame, and how he has made them both psychologically and artistically more satisfying than the versions he found in his sources. In chapter four, "Exceptions Prove the Rule," Yeager confronts the portions of CA that have traditionally posed the greatest difficulties for readers: the discussion of Labor in Book 4; the lengthy account of the religions of the world in Book 5; the treatment of Sorcery in Book 6; the whole of Book 7; and the focus in Book 8 on the sin of incest. In each case, he attempts to show how these departures from the expected pattern of the confession conform to, and help define more clearly, Gower's overall plan for his poem. Yeager is at his best in explicating the poem in this chapter: his analyses of these sections and his explanations of their place in the context of CA as a whole are insightful and in large part original. Certain themes recur in his discussion: Gower's urgency to place his treatment of love in a broader moral context; his concern for the proper use of language, especially in poetry; his "adversarial rewriting" of the literature of the past, including, again, RR; and structurally, the anticipation in these sections of the poem's epilogue and conclusion. In the last chapter, "Arion's Final Song," Yeager strives to define precisely how Gower's plan for CA gave coherency to the diversity of materials that he assembled in his poem. The key, he argues, is to be found in the figure of Arion that Gower introduces at the end of his Prologue, the poet whose "lusti melodie" was capable of bringing peace and harmony to all creation and among all classes of men. Gower thought of himself as that Arion, Yeager maintains. The fictional story of the lover Amans is his "lusti melodie." It is also, however, the story of the narrator's growth in wisdom, and at the end, having rejected the foolishness of his love, this narrator "Amans/Gower," now bearing particular resemblance to the poet himself, offers his own prayer for peace in the epilogue, and also retells the story of his conversion in this poem so that we may follow his course and help bring about the harmony that he prays for. This course leads him by way of a redefinition of love, to include more than mere romantic passion, and also by way of a discussion of the roots of political harmony in Book 7. In each respect in which Gower has broadened the discussion of love, he has surpassed the ethical limits of the traditional love allegory even while imitating its form. CA is thus "a love poem designed to outgrow itself" (p. 265), and also another attempt to reform the language of the poetic tradition from which it springs. This summary can hardly do justice to the sophistication of Yeager's argument, or to the success with which he has woven together the diverse elements of CA into a whole and embraced Gower's different poems within a coherent vision. Portions of Yeager's analysis will already be familiar to readers of Fisher, Peck, et al., particularly his attempt to use Gower's social doctrine as the basis for the unity of Gower's work, but Yeager's discussion is richer, more detailed, and more sensitive to the complexity of Gower's verse than that of most of his predecessors. Yeager has provided a provocative new view of Gower as a poet, and because of his detailed familiarity with his subject and the sharpness of his eye, there is something of value on nearly every page, even for those who are not persuaded by his central thesis. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 10.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower's Poetic: The Search for a New Arion." Publications of the John Gower Society, 2 . Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Backgrounds and General Criticism Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Vox Clamantis Cinkante Balades 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's Poetic: The Search for a New Arion. 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 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 Review Beginning with orthographic, phonologic, and inflectional studies, and continuing through linguistic and narrative borrowings and transformations, attempts to demonstrate the cohesiveness of Gower's total oeuvre, and the culmination of his poetic, moral, and social visions in CA. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Published Yeager, R. F. "John Gower's Poetic." Ph.D. Dissertation. Yale University, 1976. 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 John Gower's Poetic. 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 "Whether he was formally trained or simply taught himself, the better to trade properties," Yeager writes, "whether he practiced or didn't, what is clear from his poetry in all three languages is how thoroughly the legal perspective guided, even governed, Gower's way of looking at the world" (73); and in contrast to "the commonplace view of 'moral Gower,'" Yeager describes what he calls Gower's "lawyerly habit of mind," by which he means a sharp ability to see both the strengths and weaknesses in both sides of any argument. "Every situation has more than one side for the 'lawyerly mind,' every side can be painted more or less favorably, and in the end the court should uphold the best presented and the most persuasive--albeit not always the right, the guiltless, or the deserving" (74). Such a habit of mind, Yeager asserts, better accounts for what others--notably David Aers--have described simply as unresolved contradictions in Gower's ethical and political beliefs. As his example, Yeager offers a subtle rereading of Gower's "Cronica Tripertita," not just as an anti-Ricardian tract but also as a muted warning to Henry. Throughout the CrT Gower carefully distinguishes between humanly created law and justice, which proceeds from God. Gower shows Richard manipulating the law in order to corrupt justice, while the Appellants are consistently described as "just." Upon Henry's accession, one of the new king's first acts is to pardon Richard's counselor and intimate William Bagot, an act of mercy that also "quite clearly re-established the superiority of royal will over the law" (89), and his attempt "to emulate Christ by extending his newly acquired power supra-legally, even to show mercy, exposes a potential in him to become Richard . . . . Gower withholds little in his praise of Henry, . . . Yet at the same time he knew Henry to be a man, as vulnerable at bottom as are all men" (90). The poem thus offers both praise and "caution to ambition" (91) and reflects "both a skeptical wisdom borne of worldly disappointment and a hope rejuvenated at new beginnings" (88). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 34.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower's Poetry and the 'Lawyerly Habit of Mind'." In Theorizing Legal Personhood in Late Medieval England. Ed. Boboc, Andreea. Medieval Law and Its Practice . Leiden: Brill, 2015, pp. 71-93. ISBN 9789004284647 Gower Subject Biography of Gower 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 John Gower's Poetry and the 'Lawyerly Habit of Mind' Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Brill, 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Gilroy-Scott, Neil W Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Influence and Later Allusion Review In the two centuries after Gower's death, the poet's name is mentioned respectfully alongside that of Chaucer. However, Gower had not nearly the same popular appeal. There are three main reasons for this difference: Gower wrote two extended works in French and in Latin; he concerned himself greatly with the welfare of his country in his works; and he distributed copies of his works primarily to eminent men in church and state, thereby limiting their general dissemination. Initial references to Gower are brief, and most are influenced by Chaucer's allusion to "moral Gower" at the end of Troilus and Criseyde. From there Gilroy-Scott traces Gower's influence through the Scottish Chaucerians, Caxton, Skelton, Berthelet, Puttenham, Sir Philip Sidney, Robert Greene (at some length), and Shakespeare (in Pericles). Gower is generally praised for his morality (although some severe voices object to the lust of Venus) and commended for his compendious knowledge. Nevertheless, with the passage of time his rhymes are increasingly seen as "quaint" and by the time of Shakespeare he has become "an antique figure endowed with a measure of rustic wisdom" (47). Lacking popular appeal, Gower was eventually assigned to "the preserve of the scholar and antiquarian" (47). Based on the author's 1968 M.A. thesis, Birmingham University, "The Reputation of John Gower from 1400 to 1609." [CvD; rev. MA] Published Gilroy-Scott, Neil W. "John Gower's Reputation: Literary Allusions from the Early Fifteenth Century to the Time of 'Pericles'." Yearbook of English Studies 1 (1971), pp. 30-47. 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 1971 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource John Gower's Reputation: Literary Allusions from the Early Fifteenth Century to the Time of '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 Unlike many, Donavin's title helpfully outlines her areas of concern, and argument. Rhetoric--figures, modes and impact of instruction of "artes dictaminis" especially--has ever been a primary focus, and here she brings her extensive knowledge to bear on Gower's work, devoting the first chapter to "Gower's 'Rhethorique'," chapter four to "Epistles and Rhetorical Experimentation, Part I: Contexts and Practices," and five to "Epistles and Rhetorical Experimentation, Part II: Music and Letters in the Trentham Manuscript." "Biblical ethos" takes two broad forms: 1) a back-and-forth identification of "John" in the "Vox Clamantis" and Amans/Gower in the "Confessio" variously with John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, primarily in chapter two ("My Name is John. Biblical Ethos and Apocalyptic Narrative"), although this remains a major source of interpretation throughout, particularly guiding her reading of the VC Book I ("Visio Anglie") and the denouement of CA Book VIII; and 2) a claim for Gower's "unusual" devotion to the Virgin, traced through the "Mirour de l'Omme" and the CA (chapter three: "'Virgo bona dicendi perita.' The Good Maiden Speaking Well," and chapter six, "The 'hortus conclusus' in Gower's Poems"). A "coda"--"Renaissance Receptions of Gower's 'Repetitio'"--brings a detailed look at Chicago, Newberry Library, MS 33.5 and Jonson's "English Grammar," complementing the final section of chapter three which offers remarks on the character Marina in Shakespeare's "Pericles," and fulfilling the title's promise of "Renaissance Receptions." [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Donavin, Georgiana. Published Donavin, Georgiana. John Gower's Rhetoric: Classical Authority, Biblical Ethos, and Renaissance Receptions. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Mirour de l'Omme Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations 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 John Gower's Rhetoric: Classical Authority, Biblical Ethos, and Renaissance Receptions. 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 Scase takes on a fundamental question of Gower textual scholarship: why is the text of "Confessio Amantis" in some important manuscripts of such high quality, unusually consistent in grammar and orthography at a time when scribal dialects so often affected copying? Why didn't meddlesome scribes "meddle" (16) with the text of CA as they did with other texts? Traditional explanations reply that Gower must have somehow supervised the scribes directly, perhaps through a particular scriptorium or network. Scase's innovative explanation is meter: Gower's extraordinarily regular metrical verse "'depends' upon variant forms" (20; original emphasis), an unusual variety of linguistic forms--orthographical, morphological, and dialectical--and in order to maintain that meter, scribes had to reproduce the linguistic forms carefully, copying, in effect, "litteratim" or letter by letter, because meter demanded it. Verse less metrically regular than Gower's allowed for greater meddling, although rhymed verse tellingly, Scase observes, had long encouraged scribes to reproduce unfamiliar dialect forms to maintain rhyme pairs; similarly, perhaps by extension, she argues, Gower's scribes reproduced his orthography, morphology, and dialect to reproduce his meter with considerable success. By way of demonstration, Scase examines a sample passage (CA 1.203-34) from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 3, showing how closely metrical regularity depends upon varied uses of final --"e," other inflectional endings, infinitive forms, elisions, optional nasals, etc., and effectively "'required' intensive literatim reproduction" (22; original emphasis). She comments further on how and where Fairfax corrections in the text reflect sensitivity to meter, and then analyzes the sample passage in three more CA manuscripts (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Bodley 902, 294, and 693), adding nuance to her argument about meter, linguistic variety, and careful copying, and generalizing, for example, that Bodley 902 and 294 "comprise literatim output when it is important for meter, but not when it is unnecessary" (24) while Bodley 693 and Fairfax 3 share this "general aim and practice" but differ in "details of implementation and in the degree of skill they displayed in doing so" (24-25). Scase analyzes other passages from CA that were copied by the "five Trinity Gower scribes" in Trinity College, MS R.3.2 (Scribes A, B, C, D, and E, labeled by A. I. Doyle and M. B. Parkes), further evincing the relations between meter and Gowerian linguistic forms. She opens her arguments out to broader application by noting attention to meter in manuscripts of non-Gowerian, less regular metrical poetry copied by these scribes, especially Scribes D and E. In this way, Scase suggests that a "dynamic process" was underway, undertaken by a group of perhaps "networked" scribes, probably based in London, engaged in "trying to improve their outputs" (31). Sensitivity to rhyme led scribes to imitate dialectical forms in the rhyme-pairs; then, sensitivity to strict meter led to dialectical forms elsewhere in the verse lines, and accurate copying was set on course. The opening and closing notes in Scase's essay indicate that the essay is part of a larger project on interconnected developments of verse and copying in late-medieval England, and she here gives Gower an important place in these developments. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Scase, Wendy. Published Scase, Wendy. "John Gower's Scribes and Literatim Copying." 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. 13-31. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 John Gower's Scribes and Literatim Copying. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 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 Jamison, Carol. Published Jamison, Carol. "John Gower's Shaping of 'The Tale of Constance' as an Exemplum contra of Envy." In Richard G. Newhauser and Susan J, Ridyard, eds., Sin in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: The Tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The University of York / York Medieval Press, 2012, Pp. 239–59. ISBN 9781903153413. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Review Considering several versions of the Constance story, Jamison argues that in the Constance section of Book II of CA Gower pointedly replaced Trivet's political concerns, eschewed Chaucer's high rhetoric, and, shortening and simplifying the known narrative, produced an exemplum of Charity as a remedy to Envy. Focusing on characterization, Jamison argues that the sultan's mother "exemplifies envy" (247), that the Northumbrians charitably respond to the virtue in Constance, an embodiment of Charity itself, and that the knight who threatens Constance "reflects the first branch of envy that Genius mentions, sorrow over another man's joy" (250). Constance's marriage to King Allee "emphasizes the triumph of charity over envy," Jamison tells us, and the execution of Domilde "evokes the sin of envy" through fire imagery (252). Other details of Gower's version evince the generative power of charity in familial bonds and neighborly love. While consistently contrasting Gower's version and its analogues, Jamison also indicates how his tale "plays against the other tales and commentary in Book Two" (242), especially "The Tale of Constantine and Sylvester," to produce an exemplum pro Charity and contra Envy. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 37.1]. 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 John Gower's Shaping of "The Tale of Constance" as an Exemplum contra of Envy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 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 modern, scientifically based disapproval of artificially sweetened foods was matched, Newhauser argues, by the moral disapprobation of sweeteners in the late Middle Ages, particularly in the works of John Gower. In this wide-ranging essay, Newhauser traces both the changes in diet among the peasantry that resulted from their greater spending power following the Black Death and the growing use of sugar as a sweetener, particularly among the wealthy, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as demonstrated both by commercial records and by the cookery books of the time. For both Langland and Gower, the peasants' emulation of the tastes of their social superiors was one of several signs of the breakdown of society. For Gower as for others, sweetness has a double valence, often used in descriptions of the Virgin, for instance, but also depicted as an enticement to sin. Gower's most consistent use, Newhauser claims, is the latter, "an expression of the deception utilized by evil or the self-deception of the sinner" (755), for instance in MO 505-16, where "sweetness" applies both to the devil's rhetoric and to the temptations of the flesh. And the desire for sweet foods is one of his most common images for the corruption of the contemporary clergy, as Newhauser illustrates with passages from MO, VC, and CA, including this passage from Prol. 325-27, "Delicacie his swete toth / Hath fostred so that it fordoth / Of abstinence al that ther is," that is evidently the first use of the term "sweet tooth" in the English language. [PN. Copyright. JGN 33.1]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Newhauser, Richard Published Newhauser, Richard. "John Gower's Sweet Tooth." Review of English Studies 64 (2013), pp. 753-69. ISSN 0034-6551 Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism 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 John Gower's Sweet Tooth Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 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 Nicholason, Peter, ed. and trans. Published John Gower Society website: https://johngower.org/john-gowers-traitie/ Accessed 22 February 2024 Gower Subject Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz Facsimiles, Editions and Translations Review Provides an edition of "Traitié Selonc Les Auctours Pour Essampler Les Amantz Marietz," with line-by-line English translation, an Introduction, and Notes, available as a downloadable PDF. 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 2022 Title A name given to the resource John Gower's Traitié. 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 uses Ovid extensively, particularly drawing upon the "Metamorphoses" for stories and for descriptive language. [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Davidson, Herbert. Published Davidson, Herbert. John Gower's Use in the Confessio Amantis of the Narrative Material of Ovid. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Cincinnati, 1940. 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 John Gower's Use in the Confessio Amantis of the Narrative Material of Ovid. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1940 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 Hatton's examination of Gower's alterations of the tales he borrowed from Ovid in Book 3 provides a succinct demonstration of the ironic mode of reading and interpreting CA. Three premises are evident in his study. Genius, "a personification of man's natural urge to reproduce his species, . . . represents a carnal force" (p. 257), and is thus neither a proper confessor nor a reliable guide to the meaning of his own tales. Amans himself is deeply in need of spiritual correction, guilty of "lecherous designs" (p. 262) and "inordinate concupiscence" (p. 263). The tales offer the needed correction, but in a way unperceived by both Genius and Amans: some of the tales Genius manages to get right, but in most, he either twists the story to support an invalid lesson, or ignores the traditional moralization. In both cases, the readers can supply the true meaning from their own previous familiarity with the tales. Applying these premises to Book 3, Hatton comes up with some rather new readings for a number of tales, and discovers a previously undetected pattern to Gower's, if not Genius', instruction. To summarize only the high points of his argument: In "Canace and Machaire," Genius alters Ovid in his attempt to excuse the children's incest. In fact, they and their father are equally to be blamed: the tale illustrates the two components of the "sensate" part of the human personality, concupiscence and irascibility, and shows how the indulgence in lechery leads to a surrender to wrath, exactly as has happened in Amans. The baby adds an allegorical dimension: born of a surrender to concupiscence that parallels that of Adam and Eve, the baby is "expelled into a wilderness by the anger of the father" (p. 264), and becomes subject to the natural law that leads to death. In "Tiresias and the Snakes," Genius tells only half of the tale found in Ovid: juxtaposed to "Canace and Machaire," the parting of the snakes suggests a disturbance of the balance between irascibility and concupiscence, with its tragic consequences. In being transformed from a man into a woman, moreover, Tiresias is changed from a spiritual to a sensual being. "Jupiter, Juno, and Tiresias" is also allegorical. Jupiter equals human reason, and Juno sensuality. In deciding against Juno, Tiresias aligns himself with reason. "In revenge sensuality may blind him physically, but his spiritual nature gives him a higher kind of sight" (p. 266). (Hatton actually misrepresents Gower's version here, and overlooks some significant departures from Ovid.) The following tales illustrate the disastrous consequences of surrender to the passions, while Diogenes, like Socrates earlier, provides an example of control of the passions for Amans to follow. "Pyramus and Thisbe" illustrates the dangers of self-destructiveness that attend a surrender to the passions. Genius' alterations emphasize the irrationality of the lovers and their service to Venus and Cupid, and thus their similarity to Amans. And in "Phoebus and Daphne," the alterations support the traditional moralization of the tale as a confrontation between concupiscence and virtue in which virtue is both preserved and rewarded, but Genius misses the point, attributing Phoebus' lack of success to Fortune. In sum, Genius' lessons on wrath are sound enough, but the principal lesson that emerges from these tales, undetected by the confessor, is that as long as Amans remains a servant of concupiscence and of Venus, he cannot hope to escape wrath or to act in a reasonable way. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 10.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Hatton, Thomas J. Published Hatton, Thomas J.. "John Gower's Use of Ovid in Book III of the Confessio Amantis." Mediaevalia 13 (1989), pp. 257-274. 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 John Gower's Use of Ovid in Book III of the Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989 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 Mainzer argues for Gower's usage of medieval texts of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Fasti, Heroides, and Ibis for many of the exempla in the CA. Much of the body of Mainzer's essay consists of a series of close comparisons between Gower's Ovidian tales and their equivalents in Ovid's Metamorphoses and various versions of the Ovide Moralisé. By means of verbal parallels and shared narrative details a picture emerges of extensive borrowing from the medieval adaptations of Ovid. In addition, Gower appears to get the names of Eolen (Hercules' love interest) and Arrons (Tarquin's son) from some thirteenth-century glossed manuscripts of the Fasti. Similarly, Gower's telling of the story of "Demophon and Phyllis" was likely influenced by medieval commentaries on the Heroides, even though he could have borrowed the same details from Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum. Lastly, Gower's knowledge of a glossed version of the Ibis may be established by his substitution of Dionysius in the place of Diomedes as the tyrant condemned in Book 7 for feeding human flesh to his horses. [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Mainzer, Conrad Published Mainzer, Conrad. "John Gower's Use of the "Mediaeval Ovid" in Confessio Amantis." Medium Ævum 41 (1972), pp. 215-222. 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 John Gower's Use of the "Mediaeval Ovid" in Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 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 Yeager's major goals in this essay are "to reconsider claims which for many years have been cited as the best evidence for Gower's knowledge and use of the 'Ovide moralisé'" (64) and, more generally, to clarify the "pitfalls of source studies concentrated on just one or two texts" (62). He successfully accomplishes both by revisiting Conrad Mainzer's discussion (1972) of Gower's knowledge and use of Ovidian texts, particularly Gower's dependence upon medieval moralizations of the "Metamorphoses"--the anonymous "Ovide moralisé" and Pierre Bersuire's "Ovidius moralizatus." Before launching his own evidence, Yeager is careful to point out that Mainzer was "aware that his work constituted 'possibilities,' for him more or less credible ones" (52; Yeager's emphasis), while later critics often have taken his suggestions as more proven than plausible--oversimplification for the sake of certainty perhaps. So, while effectively eroding much of Mainzer's arguments concerning the "Ovide," Yeager is advising caution in using them rather than dispensing with them. Yet the erosion is effective; at times, devastating. Yeager marshals evidence drawn from availability (or lack) of manuscripts of the "Ovide" and analogous texts, to stylistic evidence based on Gower's habits of diction, rhyme, and meter, to stronger parallels between Gower's texts and others besides the "Ovide," especially Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess" and "Legend of Good Women," and even details of Gower's biography, education, and aspects of his "poet's imagination" (64). The upshot is to encourage source studies that do much more than simply "match the words" (61) of two texts, but rather explore networks of personal, poetic, and cultural sway that constitute literary influence. Indeed, after undermining a number of Mainzer's specific details of the influence on Gower of the "Ovide," Yeager offers several more complex "possibilities" (my emphasis this time) of the influence, matters of "elisional style" (66 and 67) and narrative technique. Throughout his essay, Yeager combines cautious, fine-grained, close analyses of details (focused on four tales of the "Confessio Amantis"--"Pyramus and Thisbe," "Theseus and Ariadne," "Phebus and Daphne," and "Phrixas and Helle"), but then broadens them out to wider concerns. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Published Yeager, R. F. "John Gower's Use of the Ovide moralisé: A Reconsideration." In Catherine Gaullier-Bourgasses and Marylène Possamaï-Pérez, eds. Réécritures et adaptations de l'Ovide moralisé (xivᵉ--xviiᵉ siècle). Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. Pp. 51-67. 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's Use of the "Ovide moralisé": A Reconsideration. 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 Olsson begins his essay by distinguishing three different perspectives on "place" in Vox Clamantis, each with a corresponding sense of justice, of time, and, we later learn, of fear, referring to geographical location in Book 1, social position in Books 3-6, and spiritual location in Book 7. The rest of his essay explores the implications of these distinctions and of the "expanding sense of place" in the poem in a detailed analysis of the separate sections, and it offers one of the most important attempts to treat VC as a work with an inner coherence of its own rather than as a mere collection of statements of Gower's political and social views. Olsson draws upon both classical and medieval rhetorical models to explain the relations among the three parts and how they constitute a single argument, leading readers from the "comun drede" pervading the England of his time to a reappreciation of their own responsibility, to a turning inward to repentance and a reexamination of their own inner life. His argument is sophisticated and complex and it defies brief summary. Among his most important contributions, however, is his redefinition of the function of the vision that constitutes Book 1 of the poem. As an exordium, the book is intended to win the readers' attention and good will for the argument that follows by implying that they too are the injured parties in the rebellion. The narrator too is clearly "vexed by injustices," but his bewilderment and fear are not a reflection of Gower's own attitude towards the peasantry but an indication that the narrator suffers from the same misperception and lack of sense of his proper "place" that the readers too must overcome. Book 2 begins the process of reordering his, and the readers', perception, and Gower shifts his narrative stance, adopting the vox populi to describe the proper duties and functions of each estate as part of his general argument that those who suffered from the peasants' attacks are themselves culpable. Book 7 juxtaposes Nebuchadnezzar's dream to the vision in Book 1: it depicts the recovery of proper place spiritually, but it also suggests a return to the world of Book 1 as a place of penance with new hope for the restoration of what has been lost. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society: JGN 6.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Olsson, Kurt Published Olsson, Kurt. "John Gower's Vox Clamantis and the Medieval Idea of Place." Studies in Philology 84 (1987), pp. 134-158. Gower Subject 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 John Gower's Vox Clamantis and the Medieval Idea of Place 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 A comparison of events and characters appearing in both works, with an attempt to isolate individual styles. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Weber, Edwart. Published Weber, Edwart. John Gowers "Chronica Tripertita" und William Shakespeares "Richard II." Bad Homburg: Weber, 1971. Gower Subject Cronica Tripertita 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 John Gowers "Chronica Tripertita" und William Shakespeares "Richard II." 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 Studies relations between Chaucer and Gower, with an attempt to determine extent and nature of mutual influence. Also provides detailed descriptions of Gower manuscripts, classified according to whereabouts. Prints the following: (on pp. 10-12) selections from CA VIII 2938-70, 3106-70, and the full Latin conclusion (from MS. Fairfax 3), and VIII 2938*-70* and the Latin conclusion through "Britannis" (from Bodley 693); (on pp. 67-68) from "Rex coeli Deus," 1-25, 31-48, 32-33 (in parallel texts from MSS. Digby 137 and Cotton Tiberius A IV); and (on p. 72) the "Balade moral of gode counseyle made by Gower" (in parallel texts from MS. Ashmole 59--where John Shirley gives it this title--and Rawlinson 86. Meyer (p. 71) neither affirms nor denies Shirley's attribution of the ballade to Gower, but reports that the manuscript catalog at Oxford suggests that it influenced Chaucer's "Truth." [RFY1981; rev. MA]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Meyer, Karl. Published Meyer, Karl. John Gowers Beziehungen zu Chaucer und König Richard II. Bonn, 1889, pp. 3-6, 47-71. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Influence and Later Allusion Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 John Gowers Beziehungen zu Chaucer und König Richard II. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1889 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 To reveal something of Gower's artistry, Esch looks at the Tale of Rosiphelee, the Tale of Albinus and Rosemund, and the Tale of Constance. The Tale of Rosiphelee is indicative of Gower's aims in the CA, since it promotes marriage, rather than just courtly love. Rosiphelee's vision of the ladies on horses is full of tension and suspense, and the narrator's easy transitions in point of view provide rich psychological insights into Rosiphelee's mind. In the second narrative, Gower makes Albinus much more in love with Rosemund. Whereas Gottfried of Viterbo (Gower's source) focuses on the curse that follows Albinus' actions, Gower primarily sees Albinus' boasting as a breach of the law of love. More attention is thus given to the feast, to the magical artwork on the cup made from Gurmond's skull, and to the dramatic moment when Albinus cryptically asks Rosemund to drink with her father. Albinus here conflates his victory in battle with a victory in love, and so in boasting he plays herald to himself. The rest of the tale – with its focus on fortune, discord, and the "wylde loves rage" (CA 1. 2620) – is entirely a "Tragödie der Liebe" ("Love tragedy"; 225). Finally, Esch compares Gower's Tale of Constance with the versions by Trivet and Chaucer. Gower creates unity by making the various episodes parallel with one another and by occasional foreshadowing of later events. Whereas Chaucer opens the tale by giving much more social context and background and initially makes Constance known less for her piety than for her beauty, Gower is more focused and abstract in his narration. In fact, Gower "erwähnt kaum ein Detail, das nicht direct mit der Handlung verknüpft ist" ("mentions hardly a detail which is not directly tied to his plot"; 233). Gower creates less pathos than Gower and separates Constance from her world by making her "einsamer, größer, unsentimentaler" ("more lonely, larger, less sentimental"; 234). Chaucer mixes irony with saintliness, but Gower is completely focused on creating a saint's legend. Still, Gower occasionally introduces brief psychological insights, as when we see Allee's thoughtfulness in dealing with Domilde's crimes (a moment which leads to a more judicial trial and punishment). Thus, Gower shows great skill in the construction of narratives, even though his artistry may not be as exceptional as Chaucer's. [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Esch, Arno Published Esch, Arno. "John Gowers Erzahlkunst." In Chaucer und seine Zeit: Symposion fur Walter F. Schirmer. Ed. Esch, Arno. Tübingen: Neimeyer, 1968, pp. 207-239. 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 John Gowers Erzahlkunst Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Neimeyer, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968 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 Considers Gower, like Chaucer, as a background to and influence on Lydgate, particularly in choice of themes and handling of French source material. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Schirmer, Walter F. Keep, Ann E., trans. Published Schirmer, Walter F. John Lydgate: Ein Kulturbild aus dem 15. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1952. Translated by Ann E. Keep, as John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the Fifteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961, pp. 33-36, 44, 71, 151, 169, 248n, 255-57. 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 John Lydgate: Ein Kulturbild aus dem 15. Jahrhundert. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 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 Cites Milton's reference to CA II, 3475-96, in "An Apology Against a Pamphlet Called a Modest Confutation Against Smectymnuus." [RFY1981; rev. MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor Jochums, Milford C., ed. Published Jochums, Milford C., ed. John Milton's "An Apology." Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1950, pp. 210. 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 John Milton's "An Apology." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1950 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 his monumental edition of Gower's works, G. C. Macaulay argued largely on prosodic grounds that the English lyric, "Passe forþe þou pilgryme"--attributed to Gower by John Shirley in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 59--was not by Gower. In this essay, Connolly challenges the disattribution by affirming the reliability of Shirley's attributions, by critiquing Macaulay's stylistic concerns, and by examining the "environment" (163) in which Macaulay made his decision, specifically discussions of the lyric by German scholars undertaken near the time when Macaulay published his edition. Connolly is expert on Shirley, and she justifiably refers to her own work in maintaining Shirley's reliability. Yet, her other arguments are less powerful, and they do not lead to any conviction--hers or mine--that the poem is by Gower, only that the "question of the authenticity" of the lyric "deserves renewed and urgent attention" (166), which it indeed does. It is a powerful lyric, in the tradition of Chaucer's "Truth" as Connolly points out, and included by Shirley in a compilation of related pieces, otherwise all by John Lydgate, as Connolly also records, commenting "were the poem not so clearly labelled as Gower's" by Shirley, "it could pass for one of Lydgate's" (154). Connolly usefully edits the thirty-five line poem in its entirety, helping to bring it back from the obscurity into which Macaulay's treatment helped to cast it, and she discusses all three manuscript witnesses to its text, along the way confronting and rejecting John Stow's attribution of the lyric to Benedict Burgh in British Library, MS Additional 29729, later than Shirley's by some 100 years. I do not think, however, that the poem is Gower's, nor that Connolly's surmises about "how far Macaulay may have been influenced by . . . German scholars" of the time (164) undermines the editor's opinion about attribution. As for metrical concerns, Connolly claims the "disturbance to regular scansion" (162) in the lyric--regularity being so characteristic of Gower--is due to Shirley's "South West Midlands" dialect conflicting with Gower's East Midlands dialect, but she does not provide enough evidence to help me reject Macaulay's claim, as she records, that "It is almost impossible that these verses can have been written by Gower" (155; Macaulay II, clxxiii). I am grateful to be introduced to "Passe forþe" and, with Connolly, would very much like to know who wrote it. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Connolly, Margaret. Published Connolly, Margaret. "John Shirley and John Gower." 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. 153-66. Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 John Shirley and John Gower. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 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 presented as background reading for Skelton, who knew at least the CA, and who at points is matched by Gower's moralizing voice and approach. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Gordon, Ian A. Published Gordon, Ian A. John Skelton: Poet Laureate. Melbourne: University Press, 1943, pp. 5, 58, 62, 66, 106. 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 John Skelton: Poet Laureate. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943 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 Citations of Skelton's praise of Gower, along with Chaucer and Lydgate. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Carpenter, Nan C. Published Carpenter, Nan C. John Skelton. New York: Twayne, 1967, pp. 62, 104, 112. 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 John Skelton. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 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 Sees Gower as less of a political satirist than Skelton, whose frequent allusions to Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate are not wholly serious. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fish, Stanley E. Published Fish, Stanley E. John Skelton's Poetry. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965. Reprinted 1967, pp. 33, 231, 232 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 John Skelton's Poetry. 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Leff, Amanda M. Published Leff, Amanda M. Johnson's Chaucer: Searching for the Medieval in "A Dictionary of the English Language." Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual 21 (2011): 1-20. ISSN 0884-5916. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Language and Word Studies Review Leff documents the strong presence of Chaucer in Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" and explores Johnson's views on Chaucer's language. Although he considers Middle English outdated, Johnson quotes and/or refers to Chaucer works a number of times as identified by previous scholars. Leff reviews this scholarship and, enjoying the benefits of digital research, adds significantly to the data of her predecessors, correcting a few errors and misconceptions along the way, and reporting hundreds of previously unremarked instances where Johnson quotes or refers to Chaucer's works in John Dryden's modernizations. Along the way, and of particular interest to Gowerians, Leff discusses Johnson's recurrent effort in his critical writings to "deflate Chaucer's reputation and boost Gower's" (13). Johnson praises Gower's "smooth numbers and easy rhymes," Leff tells us, calls Gower, not Chaucer, "the father of English poetry," and presents him as Chaucer's teacher, the latter notion seemingly based on Johnson's misreading of Venus's praise of Chaucer in the first recension of CA, perhaps reinforced (or inspired) by the lexicographer's familiarity with John Skelton's "Garland of Laurel" which privileges Gower over Chaucer. Leff observes that in the body of his "Dictionary" Johnson cites Gower only twice, in effect undercutting his praise of him elsewhere. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society 37.1]. 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/. 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 Johnson's Chaucer: Searching for the Medieval in "A Dictionary of the English Language." 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 Owen surveys the presence of Caesar in English literature from the early fourteenth century through Shakespeare, with particular attention to drama, including some continental works. His opening survey of medieval materials is largely taxonomic and descriptive, background material for analysis of early modern references and depictions in plays, locating references and allusions to Caesar in romances, chronicles, lists of the Nine Worthies, and moral anecdotes. His brief treatment of Gower's works (pp. 31-36) falls appropriately into the latter grouping, nested with discussions of Chaucer's, Hoccleve's, and (most extensively) Lydgate's works. For Gower, Owen tells us, Caesar "is an ideal representing various positive moral qualities worthy of emulation. No blemishes or faults are mentioned. Caesar is symbolic of the great world leader, and Gower uses him as a pattern for others . . . rather than presenting him as a complete human being" (31-2): he is idealized as a "noble ruler" of Rome in the Prologue to the "Confessio Amantis," a skillful orator in Book VII.1597 and 1615, generous and of subtle discernment in the CA accounts of "Julius and the Poor Knight" and "Cesar and the Flatterers," Book VII.2061ff. and 2449ff., respectively. Owen closes this tally by observing where Gower includes Caesar with other ancient rulers as reminders of the passing of worldly kings and kingdoms in advice given to Richard (twice in "Vox Clamantis") and to Henry ("In Praise of Peace"). [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Owen, Trevor Allen. Published Owen, Trevor Allen. "Julius Caesar in English Literature from Chaucer through the Renaissance." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Minnesota, 1966. Dissertation Abstracts International 27 (1967): 3847A. Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. 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 Julius Caesar in English Literature from Chaucer through the Renaissance. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1966 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 facing-page translation (Latin and English prose) of Julius Valerius' account of Alexander's birth from "Res Gestae Alexandri Macedonis," one of the likely sources of Gower's Tale of Nectanabus in CA 6.1789-2366, includes a brief introduction. [MA] Author/Editor Author/Editor DeAngeli, Edna S Published DeAngeli, Edna S. "Julius Valerius' Account of the Birth of Alexander: Text and Translation." In John Gower's Literary Transformations in the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations. Ed. Beidler, Peter G. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982, pp. 119-41. ISBN 0819125962 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 Julius Valerius' Account of the Birth of Alexander: Text and Translation. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available University Press of America, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section 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 Barbaccia, Holly G. Published Barbaccia, Holly G.. "Kalendes of chaunge: Thinking Through Change in Middle English Poetry." PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2005. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review "The middle ages, so often assumed to be an epoch of orderly, hierarchical stability, is continuously fascinated or dismayed by the prospect and spectacle of change. My dissertation surveys representations of chaunge and eschaunge (interchangeable terms in Middle English) in fourteenth and fifteenth-century literature in order to arrive at a better understanding of how medieval authors struggled with the subjects of transformation and substitution, and what that struggle tells us about those authors, and about Middle English poetry. It transpires that the Middle English poetry paying most attention to chaunge and eschaunge attaches the language and imagery of transformation and substitution to female figures. My study investigates the most important of these figures and representative practices as they evolve in late fourteenth-century England, within the context of the literary exchanges and social changes of the Hundred Years War. Langland's Lady Meed and Gower's Constance, Chaucer's Criseyde, and the Gawain-poet's Lady Bertilak work differently to different ends, effecting change in masculine narrators and protagonists that excites outrage, astonishment, and admiration. . . . The figures and texts I study speak to complex concerns and questions for the Middle Ages: chaunge and eschaunge reveal the instability of the world, and are in turn used to theorize the ways instability itself might provide or deny us access to stable meaning. My aim is to show that what for moderns might seem trite or clichéd formulae, such as Lady Fortune and her wheel, might (as great poetry) speak powerfully to our deepest concerns: what happens next? What is happening to me? 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 Kalendes of chaunge: Thinking Through Change in Middle English Poetry 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 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 Peck, Russell A. Published Peck, Russell A.. "Kingship and Common Profit in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1978 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Review Russell Peck argues that in the political and social turmoil of the fourteenth century, Gower turns to classical stories to find certainty and perspective and to provide a kind of social commentary that is regenerative, not only for the common good, but also for the individual person. In fact, the individual and the state are two sides of the same coin and man is "a double entity, both social and individual" (xxi). As such, kingship is really a form of maturity, self-rule, and rationality. Gower's "notion of social structure is thus interwoven with his theory of ethics, psychology, and theology" (xxi). Peck suggests that these are some of the hallmarks of Gower's ideology and he traces these ideas in chronological fashion through the various books of the CA. Peck explains that the Prologue to the CA lays out several of Gower's major themes. Peck suggests that Gower operates with the Augustinian model of faculty psychology, which divides the mind into three faculties: Memory, Intellect, and Will. The will is the loving faculty, but through sin it often gets stuck in narcissism rather than true knowledge. It is this selfishness that causes social division, a theme that is portrayed in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Peck then surveys the various historical problems that Gower mentions – e.g., the Peasants' Revolt and the Papal Schism – and shows that for Gower the issue is always one of individual responsibility. Despite Gower's pessimistic picture of contemporary degeneration and his eventual disillusionment with Richard II, the Prologue ends with an optimistic note that common profit may yet be found through individual reform. Book I begins the Boethian journey of self-discovery. The mode of confession operates here as "a kind of psychoanalysis" (30). Instrumental in this process is Genius, whose origins Peck briefly traces, and whom Peck associates with the mental faculty "ingenium" (closely linked to the imagination). In Book I, Genius weaves his tales around the theme of community. For instance, the Tale of Florent ends in "the mutual respect of true community" (49). Amans is thus instructed to leave behind the narcissism of pride, the cupidity which keeps him from regaining his true kingship, and to seek out common profit instead. Book 2 is equally political, particularly when Gower discusses the sin of supplantation. Gower argues that the seeker after singular profit will lose all through poetic justice, whereas the seeker of common profit will be rewarded (66-67). Books 3 and 4 deal less with common profit, even though "the motif of kingship is considerably enlarged here" (79). Instead, Gower chooses to develop the story of Amans' infatuation. Peck notes that Genius does not always seem consistent here. Whereas at first Genius seems to suggest that the "sexual urge almost excuses many a crime" (85), in Book V he will strongly endorse virginity. According to Peck, this fits the structure of the CA which uses the device of argumentation to proceed by opposition and debate (86). Book 5 is the turning point in the poem. Genius becomes increasingly more reflective and sober. The reason is that the discourse on religions leaves him embarrassed about the cuckoldry of the gods and the lascivious nature of Venus. However, Peck also points out that Genius is ultimately a structural device rather than a psychologically rich character (105). The rest of the chapter on Book 5 looks at kingship and common profit in four tales: the Tale of Virgil's Mirror, the Tale of Medea and Jason, the Tale of Adrian and Bardus, and the Tale of Paris and Helen. In the second half of the CA, the focus shifts "from categories of sin to the general psychology of willfulness" (125). As a result, in Book 6 the focus is less on Drunkenness and Delicacy (species of Gluttony) and our attention is instead "turned to willful Amans' desires as he describes how besotted he is in love" (126). Within this scheme, then, sorcery and delicacy are forms of fantasy that allow the selfish will to disguise itself and to adapt reality to its own wishes (128). Book 7, structurally the most important book in the CA (140), is about the "governance of will by wit and reason" and is "an antidote to all the sins discussed in the poem" (125). Instead of a confession, we now get a sermon. The book defines man's role in a universe that the medieval humanist Gower describes as a kind of "cosmic community" (141). Book 8, according to Peck, is about the "rediscovery of right relationships" (161), about gaining perspective, and about the voyage home. Incest, the sin described in Book 8, is the crime of narcissism and immoderation, and stands in opposition to community and the golden mean. The Tale of Apollonius is a demonstration of how this sin can be overcome through the kind of kingship and self-governance that follows the five points of policy laid out in Book 7 (168-69). The tale provides a fitting ending for the CA, because Amans, like Apollonius is in exile and needs to recover his (spiritual) kingship. After Amans goes "Homward" (8.2967), Gower ends with a prayer for the state of England, an ending which "reminds us of Chaucer's Retraction or the conclusion to Troilus and Criseyde" (184) because of its movement to a larger community in which man can have faith. [CvD] 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 Kingship and Common Profit in Gower's Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Southern Illinois UP, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 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 Review McKinley justifies Gower's frequently criticized departure from the content and structure of the rest of his poem in Book 7 of CA by citing the analogy of the classical ecphrasis, which she defines (rather more broadly than usual) as "a protracted (often book-length) narrative digression which may depend for much of its dramatic power on visual representation, but which is ultimately used by the poet to address a theme or themes (often political) which transcend the 'main story' of the larger poem" (pp. 161-62). She cites three principal examples to support her definition: Homer's description of Achilles' shield in the Iliad, Book 18, known to medieval readers in Baebius Italicus' first-century "Ilias Latina"; Virgil's description of Aeneas' shield in Book 8 of the "Aeneid"; and Orpheus's song in Book 10 of the "Metamorphoses," which McKinley describes as a "self-contained mini-epic" (p. 162). The first two of these interrupt the narratives in which they are contained in order to offer a broadened perspective on the action of the poem, Homer's with a view of the entire cosmos, extending down to a classical version of the "fair field full of folk;" and Virgil's with its summary of Roman history down to the time of the Caesars. Ovid's ecphrasis is rather different in nature, containing eight separate stories within a story, and offering a single coherent view of the "bewildering complexities and joys of human love." McKinley finds both structural and thematic resemblances between Book 7 and each of these. Ovid provides the model for a "fully coherent poem-within-a-poem" (p. 169), for the use of narratives within the ecphrasis, for the framing of tales within a tale (as in "The King, Wine, Woman and Truth"), and for the use of contrasting exempla. Though Virgil is ingratiating and Gower "cautionary" (p. 172), the Roman poet provides a precedent for Gower's address to his ruler; and though their agendas differ, "both poets employ the structural ecphrasis to project a social and political commentary on the ruler" (p. 173). Aeneas' inability to understand the vision of Roman history is recalled, moreover, in Amans' general cluelessness about the applicability of Genius' instruction to his own case. Homer/Baebius, finally, uses the ecphrasis as a way of juxtaposing microcosm and macrocosm: "the vision offered is much like a corrective lens, through which the character (Achilles; Amans) is shown a world whose concerns are much greater than his own and whose harmony depends upon his own active contribution to the social order" (p. 182). McKinley uses her comparison to works so dissimilar to one another as part of a general argument on the importance of Book 7 as the place in which Gower "convey[s] his own artistic, philosophical, and ethical vision" (p. 170). She sees a dual lesson in Gower's ecphrasis, one for Amans, on the foolishness of his love, and one for Richard II, on "importance of self-governance and proper kingship" (p. 170); and she suggests at one point that with Book 7 Gower "complicates the larger enterprise of the Confessio such that we are compelled to ask whether the larger outlying story of Amans isn't fundamentally a 'backdrop' however detailed, for Gower's more central explorations on kingship and polity" (p. 168; her emphasis). In the final part of her essay she examines the exempla in Book 7 for their contribution to Gower's purpose. She sees the tale of "The Jew and the Pagan," quite remarkably, as an allegory of Richard's relations with his subjects and as "the harbinger of the king's downfall" (p. 173); but she gives fullest attention to the tale of Lucrece, in which the two programs of the poem, on the excesses of kingship and of individual desire, most fully merge (p. 175), and in which the specific lessons for both Amans and the king are most explicit. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor McKinley, Kathryn Published McKinley, Kathryn. "Kingship and the Body Politic: Classical Ecphrasis and Confessio Amantis VII." Mediaevalia 21 (1996), pp. 161-187. 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 Kingship and the Body Politic: Classical Ecphrasis and Confessio Amantis VII. 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 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 dissertation will examine John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' and illustrate the poem's dominant political theme. In addition, it will suggest the manner by which this political theme is structured through the use of a joined biblical and historical paradigm, and relate the political theme and structure to the courtly and penitential themes which have previously received a large share of attention in Gower studies." [eJGN 39.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Grant, Kenneth B. Published Grant, Kenneth B. "Kingship in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'." Ph.D. Diss. Marquette University, 1980. DAI 40: 5045A. 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 Kingship in John Gower's "Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980 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 entitled "Gowers Französische Balladen und Chaucer," Koeppel argues that Chaucer may have been influenced by Gower's CB. Koeppel's best evidence is that Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (PF) appears to repeat the refrain of Balade 25, "Car qui bien aime ses amours tard oblie." This line occurs in some MSS of PF after line 679, although it is also present in other French lyrics. The influence may be strengthened by similarities between Balade 35 (about Saint Valentine) and both PF and Book of the Duchess. Koeppel also notes that Book 2 of Troilus and Criseyde shares some phrasing with Gower's balades, especially in its expression of happy love (CB 44) and in its bird imagery (CB 46). [CvD] Author/Editor Author/Editor Koeppel, Emil Published Koeppel, Emil. "Kleine Beiträge zur Englischen Litteratur-Geschichte." Englische Studien 20 (1895), pp. 154-160. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations 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 Kleine Beiträge zur Englischen Litteratur-Geschichte Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1895 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 Edwards, A. C. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Confessio Amantis Review Discusses Gower's and Chaucer's choice of Knaresborough as locus for the Donegild incident in the Tale of Constance, possibly because of its black reputation following the murder of Thomas Becket. [RFY1981] Published Edwards, A. C. "Knaresborough Castle and 'The Kynges Moodres Court'." Philological Quarterly 19 (1940): 306-09. Reprinted in Edward Wagenknecht, ed. Chaucer: Modern Essays in Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 83-87. 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 1940 Title A name given to the resource Knaresborough Castle and "The Kynges Moodres Court.'" 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 Ricketts, Peter T. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Published Ricketts, Peter T.. "Knowledge as Therapy: A Comparison Between the Confessio Amantis of Gower and the Breviari d'Amor of Matfre Ermengaud." In The Court Reconvenes: Courtly Literature Across the Disciplines. Selected Papers from the Ninth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society . . . 25-31 July 1998. Ed. Altmann, Barbara K and Carroll, Carleton W.. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003, pp. 57-69. Review The "Breviari d'Amor" by Matfre Ermengaud is a late thirteenth-century Medieval Occitan poem of 34,600 lines in rhyming couplets. Like CA, it can be considered a summa of love, and it probably derived from some of the same sources. It is structured very differently, however. Rather than a confession, the last part of the poem consists of a dialogue between the poet and the troubadours who have asked him to instruct them on the origin and nature of love. This section is preceded by a long expository treatment of the creation of the world and a recitation of biblical history which serves to situate the origins of love. The poem also contains an introduction in which the poet describes the "Tree of Love" (a device also used, according to Ricketts, by the pseudo Hugh of St. Victor and Raimon Llull) in which love between man and woman, love of children, the love of God and one's neighbor, and love of things are all represented as branches springing from a single trunk, having their origin in God by way of Nature. The tree is elaborated with the fruits that one may hope to obtain on each branch and with the leaves that one must pick in order to obtain the fruits. The fruits of sexual love are thus obtained by picking leaves that are labeled with virtues such as "largueza." The poet invokes the image of this tree again in the final part of his work. Ricketts' comments on CA are few. He steers his way between Minnis and Simpson on the relation between the Prologue and the rest of the poem, and he describes the "plot" involving Amans' education in terms largely drawn from Peck. (These three are the only commentators on CA to appear in Rickett's very brief bibliography.) The comparison between the Breviari and CA works largely in Gower's favor: by using a genuine dialogue and by embellishing it with tales drawn from "romance," Gower has created a more sophisticated structure, both artistically and morally. Someone with a great deal of patience might find it possible to mine the Breviari for analogues to some more specific aspects of Gower's poem, particularly for his notions of Nature and for his framework of the sins and virtues of love. [PN. Copyright. Th John Gower Society. JGN 23.2] 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/. 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 2003 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource Knowledge as Therapy: A Comparison Between the Confessio Amantis of Gower and the Breviari d'Amor of Matfre Ermengaud 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 A brief, readable outline of Gower's life and writings. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Schirmer, Walter F. Published Schirmer, Walter F. Kurze Geschichte der englischen und amerikanischen Literatur. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1964, pp. 45-47 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 Kurze Geschichte der englischen und amerikanischen Literatur. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964 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 CA and MO are firmly within the exemplum tradition. [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Welter, J. T. Published Welter, J. T. L'Exemplum dans la Littérature Religieuse et Didactique du Moyen Age. Paris: Occitania, 1927, pp. 207-09. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) 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 L'Exemplum dans la Littérature Religieuse et Didactique du Moyen Age. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1927 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 majority of this 890-page effort consists of 1) a transcription and paleographic discussion of the Prologue and Books I-IV; 2) a critical edition of the same selections; and 3) a comparative study of Gower's English text alongside the Portuguese version. Pages 1-114 offer "historico-cultural context"; and account of the marriages of John of Gaunt's two daughters, Philippa and Katherine, to (respectively) the kings of Portugal and Castile; discussion of what is known/can be surmised about the translators of the Portuguese and Castilian Confessios; the merits of the two courts as literary incubators; approximation(s) at chronology, both for Gower's writing and the translations; comments on the hands and the capitals in Madrid Bib. MS g.II.19 ("Confisyon del amante"). In Spanish, with multiple, clear reproductions of hands and color (albeit not in color). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. JGN 28.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Faccon, Manuela Published Faccon, Manuela. "La Fortuna de la Confessio Amantis en la Peninsula Iberica: Estudio Comparativo de las Traducciones Edicion del MS Madrid, Real Biblioteca, II-3088 (Prologo I, II, III, IV Libros." PhD thesis, University of Verona / University of Zaragoza, 2007. Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations 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 La Fortuna de la Confessio Amantis en la Peninsula Iberica: Estudio Comparativo de las Traducciones Edicion del MS Madrid, Real Biblioteca, II-3088 (Prologo I, II, III, IV Libros. 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 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 This article studies an aspect of the Castilian CA (or "Confisyon del Amante") which, though pointed out by some scholars before, had never been elucidated: the modifications carried out in some classical stories by the Castilian translator, Juan de Cuenca, when rendering the Portuguese version of Gower's poem. Clara Pascual-Argente identifies the source for those changes in the stories of Frixus and Hellen (CA V.4248-4361 ); Ulysses and Thelogonus (CA VI.1391-1788); Hercules and Deianire (CA II, 2157-2307); and Tereus, Progne and Filomena (CA V.5551-6052). Through a systematic and detailed comparison of these stories in the Castilian Ca on the one hand, and in one of the most popular compilations of Trojan narrations in Iberia, the "Sumas de historia troyana," on the other, Pascual-Argente traces the origin of a variety of modifications, like changes in the names of characters, expansions, abbreviations and rewritings in the tales. Although some of these variations do not affect substantially Gower's narratives, in some other cases Juan de Cuenca follows the text of the "Sumas" in order to eliminate imprecisions, particularly causal and spatial imprecisions which he might have thought obscured the circumstances of the action in the original. Pascual-Argente connects Juan de Cuenca's usage of the "Sumas" for his rewriting of the CA with the Castilian political, cultural and literary context of the first half of the fifteenth century. From a political point of view, she explains the relevance of Hercules in connection with the popularity of the hero in Castilian historiographical and literary texts attempting to bestow classical lineage on the monarchy. Pascual-Argente cogently argues that from a literary perspective the modifications intended to fill causal and spatial gaps are the result of the "mise en prose" of the Gowerian poem: the prose style of the "Sumas" is thus a way of enhancing the narrativity of the tales, and making it closer to contemporary classical prose stories. Finally, the author contextualizes Juan de Cuenca's modifications in the atmosphere of fifteenth-century vernacular humanism. Following Cortijo Ocaña, she perceives a generic shift in the "Confisyon," from a "literaturized confession manual" to a tale compilation, more in tune with the tastes for classical material developed by the new reading elites, particularly by courtly nobility with intellectual aspirations. [ASH. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 34.2.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Pascual-Argente, Clara Published Pascual-Argente, Clara. "La huella de las 'Sumas de historia troyana' en la 'Confessio Amantis' castellana." Revista de Filología Española 95.1 (2015), pp. 127-52. ISSN 0210-9174 Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations 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 La huella de las 'Sumas de historia troyana' en la 'Confessio Amantis' castellana. 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 in the tradition of Chaucer, Wycliff, and the "Roman de la Rose." [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Lalou, Rene. Published Lalou, Rene. La Littérature Anglaise. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1944, pp. 7-8. 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 La Littérature Anglaise. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1944 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 allusions to linguistic similarities in the literary dialects of Chaucer and Gower. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Tallese, Tarquinio. Published Tallese, Tarquinio. La Poesia di Chaucer. 2d rev. ed. Naples: R. Pironti, 1946, pp. 11, 13, 25. 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 La Poesia di Chaucer. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1946 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 that Goethe may have been influenced by the material and the tone of the CA, Book VII. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Krappe, A. H. Published Krappe, A. H. "La Thème de la 'Science Sterile' chez Gower et chez Goethe." Revue de la Littérature Comparée 12 (1932): 821-23. 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 La Thème de la 'Science Sterile' chez Gower et chez Goethe. 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Santano Moreno, Bernardo Published Santano Moreno, Bernardo. "La traducción de "Confessio amantis" de John Gower." Anuario de estudios filológicos 12 (1989), pp. 253-65. ISSN 0071-1713 Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Manuscripts and Textual Studies Confessio Amantis Review After a review of the main studies of the Spanish translation of the CA and the main issues related to it--like the alleged existence of the Portuguese intermediate version--,Santano attempts to date both the only extant Spanish manuscript of the "Confisyon" and translation itself. The manuscript is written, he claims, in a hand similar to the script found in some late-fifteenth documentary records of the city of Huete, the birthplace of Juan de Cuenca, who translated the poem. For the date of the translation, he uses internal evidence. Thus, the reference to Huete as city in the Spanish text provides a post quem dating point,1428, when the town received this new designation. Similarly, the term "corona"--considered a calque from Portuguese--translates the English currency "pound;" Santano points out that this currency was used in Portugal in times of Dom Duarte (1433-38). An English version of this article (slightly modified) was published as: Santano Moreno, Bernardo. "Some Observations on the Dates and Circumstances of the Fifteenth-Century Portuguese and Castilian Translations of John Gower's Confessio Amantis." SELIM 1 (1991), pp. 106-122. 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 traducción de "Confessio amantis" de John Gower Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989 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 Antonio Cortijo Ocaña is the researcher who has published most extensively on the Spanish and Portuguese medieval translations of the "Confessio Amantis," including the edition of some sections of the latter. In this article he brings together the two versions in order to analyze the Juan de Cuenca's craft as Spanish translator of Robert Payne's Portuguese version. As he states that his purpose is to examine the "intrahistory" (87) of this rendering, he focuses on the opening of book VIII for his analysis, the story of Apollonius, which he edits in parallel. In the pages that precede this edition, Cortijo reminds us of the context in which the Confessio reached the Iberian Peninsula-–during the reigns of Philippa and Catherine of Lancaster–-suggesting that the Spanish humanist Alonso de Cartagena might have promoted Cuenca's translation, as "a propaganda literary text, of ethical, moral and entertaining character" (84). His study of Payne's and Cuenca's versions leads him to conclude that the Spanish text is highly faithful to the Portuguese at all levels--syntactical, semantic, lexical--to the point of calquing his source text. Cortijo Ocaña remarks that, in spite of this fidelity, Juan de Cuenca deliberately evinces his presence and work as translator in the Spanish text through some minor modifications like "amplificationes," abbreviations or changes in word order which however do not alter the sense of his source. Because, in Cortijo's opinion, the ruling principle of translation for Juan de Cuenca was that the Portuguese text was "almost a 100% transferable" (87). [ASH. Copyright. The John Gower Society JGN 29.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio Published Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio. "La traducción de Juan de Cuenca: el minúsculo oficio del traductor." In Traducción y Humanismo: Panorama de un desarrollo cultural. Ed. Recio, Roxana. Soria, Spain: [University of Valladolid], 2007, pp. 83-129. ISBN 9788496695184 Gower Subject 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 La traducción de Juan de Cuenca: el minúsculo oficio del traductor. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [University of Valladolid], 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 Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio Published Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio. "La traducción portuguesa de la Confessio Amantis de John Gower." Euphrosyne 23 (1995), pp. 457-466. ISSN 0531-2175 Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review Announces the discovery of a manuscript of the Portuguese translation of CA, the source of the Castilian translation of the poem. The Castilian translation has long been known. (Macaulay has a few words about it, Works 2.clxvii-clxviii.) Dated (by Santano Moreno) sometime before 1454, it claims to be based on a Portuguese version by one Ruberto Payno, who has been identified with a clergyman who accompanied Philippa of Lancaster to Lisbon. Until now, no trace of this work has been found. The manuscript was discovered in the Biblioteco de Palacio, Madrid, where it had been catalogued simply as "Libro de las moralidades." Professor Cortijo had the good luck of having the existence of the manuscript communicated to him by Professor Angel Gomez Moreno, and then upon obtaining a microfilm, he had the perspicacity to identify it as the long lost translation of Gower. The manuscript is a paper quarto, about 10.25 x 7.5 inches. The main body, containing the translation, consists of 251 leaves written in two columns. It is preceded by 8 leaves containing an index to the poem in Castilian, evidently added later. The text begins with the first line of the English Prologue, with no mention of the title, the author, or the translator; but it is followed by a colophon which identifies the scribe (Joham Barroso, whom Cortijo has not been able to identify), his patron (D. Fernando de Castro the Younger, from Cepta, a small corner of Spanish territory in northwest Africa opposite Gibraltar), and the date of the completion of the copy, 1430. Santano Moreno recently argued that the translation was done after 1433. That date must now be revised and indeed pushed back beyond 1430 to allow enough time for the Portuguese version to become known, and a copy of it acquired, by a minor Spanish nobleman. The index was no doubt added for the convenience of the Spanish readers. It is not identical, however, to the index that is now attached to the Spanish translation, and that is one of several indications that the newly found manuscript is not that upon which the Spanish translation was based, allowing us to infer an even wider diffusion. It appears from Cortijo's account that the Spanish version follows the Portuguese very closely. Cortijo's essay contains the fullest description of the manuscript and it also provides the English, Portuguese and Spanish versions Book 1, lines 2681-2784, the portion of dialogue that precedes the tale of "Nebuchadnezzar's Punishment." [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society JGN 20.1.] 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 La traducción portuguesa de la Confessio Amantis de John Gower Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1995 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 German. Erzgräber's is a survey of English literature's rise at the end of the fourteenth century through Chaucer and Gower to the level of French and German poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. (Langland, whom he sees as a religious poet, becomes more prominent after the Reformation.) Although Gower appears throughout by way of comparison with Chaucer and Langland, primary discussion is localized at 224-27 and 239-246. In the latter pages he discusses the three major works, dwelling primarily on the "Vox Clamantis" and the "Confessio Amantis," with brief consideration of the "Mirour de l'Omme." He points out affinities with Boethius and the frequent reliance on Ovid, calls Gower's style "graphisch" (227), comparing it favorably to Chaucer's "malerischen" style. He presents Gower as a "powerful critic of his times," and positions him in the company of Robert Manning, William of Waddington, and Dan Michel of Northgate (239). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Erzgräber, Willi. Published Erzgräber, Willi. "Langland, Gower, Chaucer." In Willi Erzgraber. Europaisches Spatmittelalter. Wiesbaden: Athenaion; 1978, pp. 221-74. Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Style, Rhetoric, and Versification 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 Langland, Gower, Chaucer. 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 Includes close examination of MO, 18421-21780; VC, Books III and IV; and CA, Prologue, from the viewpoint of religious criticism. [RFY1981] Author/Editor Author/Editor Gebhard, Heinrich. Published Gebhard, Heinrich. Langlands und Gowers Kritik der kirchlichen Verhaltnisse ihrer Zeit. Strassburg: Hornberg, 1911. 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 Langlands und Gowers Kritik der kirchlichen Verhaltnisse ihrer Zeit. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1911 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 Williams, Jon Kenneth Published Williams, Jon Kenneth. "Languages of kingship in Ricardian Britain." PhD thesis, Columbia University, 2009. Gower Subject In Praise of Peace Minor Latin Poetry Cronica Tripertita Influence and Later Allusion Review "In 'Languages of Kingship in Ricardian Britain' I examine representations of King Richard II, most notably known to literature as Shakespeare's doomed protagonist, a hubristic, puerile, and clearly unfit king who awaits his deserved overthrow. This portrayal, written and performed centuries after Richard's deposition and subsequent murder, springs from a mythology perpetuated by Richard's supplanter, Henry of Lancaster, and his adherents: that the Ricardian regime existed only as a prologue to its own eclipse. Texts that date from Richard's twenty-two-year reign (1377-1399), however, used many of the same descriptors and rhetorical strategies that the Lancastrians would adapt--but with very different ambitions and ends. . . . In my fourth chapter I read a series of texts that date to the final year of Richard's reign and to the first years of the Lancastrian dynasty. I trace a debate amongst several poems about the nature and efficacy of advisory literature as a genre once it was evident that earlier literature of advice had failed to alter Richard's behavior. I argue that the anonymous poem 'Richard the Redeless' attempts to avoid tribulations similar to those that bedeviled Richard's earlier reign by declaring that learned men have a civic responsibility to advise the king and that John Gower's poems 'In Praise of Peace' and 'O Deus Immense' propose that divine favor must be earned through good government and not considered an expected appurtenance of kingship. Finally, I propose that Gower introduces into his narrative of Richard's fall, the Tripartite Chronicle, a psychological motive for the king's failure to heed prior good counsel: a mysterious, interior 'dark suffering' that would reappear for centuries in historical and biographical accounts of the late king. Gower's efforts, reflect the pervasive recognition that political sovereignty is ultimately a literary construct. 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 Languages of kingship in Ricardian Britain. 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 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 Echard, Siân Published Echard, Siân. "Last Words: Latin at the End of the Confessio Amantis." In Interstices: Studies in Middle English and Anglo-Latin Texts in Honour of A.G. Rigg. Ed. Green, Richard and Mooney, Linne R.. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, pp. 99-121. Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review Echard examines how the selection and presentation of the final matter (mostly in Latin) in both MSS and editions of Gower's works affect the reader's perception of the poet's achievement and reputation. The variety that she reveals is concealed, of course, beneath the arrangement that has become familiar to us from the choices that Macaulay made for his edition. Where we are accustomed to read the author's assertions about his "survival through his works " (100), for instance, two MSS of VC end instead with an epitaph, an offer of indulgences for those who pray for the poet's soul, and in one case an illustration of a tomb, drawing attention to his death and to an afterlife of a very different kind. Similar alternatives are evident in the two versions of the final Latin epigram of Book 8 of CA. One praises Richard, the other makes a more general prayer. Apart from the political motivation for the alteration, "one version could be seen as the poet's self-proclamation under the guide of the conventional courtly gesture; the other, as the equally conventional but different recognition, in the face of approaching death, of a spiritual imperative that supersedes the poetic claim" (103). The Latin Explicit that normally follows CA also exists, as is well known, in two versions, one with an additional two lines commending the book to Henry. But again, beyond whatever personal or political motivation for the addition, there is also a change in the poet's self-presentation, shifting attention from "his own poetic claims to attention" (104) to his subservience to his patron. In the revisions of the colophon, Echard sees not only a changing view of his first patron but also a shift from the attention given to the composition and structure of Gower's three poems to the language in which they are written: "the result of the process, whether it was Gower's process or not, is that this linguistic aspect of his poetic identity is heightened, and actually looms as large or larger in the manuscript tradition than do his political allegiances" (106). Gower's linguistic achievement is also emphasized in the verses beginning "Eneidos Bucolis," which are found in two copies of CA and four of VC. "This is a paradoxical piece," Echard notes, "asserting in Latin that the key aspect of Gower's poetic identity is his mastery of the vernacular" (108), a paradox heightened by the way in which it normally occurs in the company of his Latin or French compositions rather than his English, even in MSS of CA. The surviving copies also differ in the ways in which the end matter is decorated and arranged. The result is a variety of different presentations of the poet, a tradition that continues in modern editions, as both Berthelette and Macaulay, in Echard's account, can each be found making choices of presentation based on his own ideas about what constitutes an appropriate "last word." Echard's essay concludes with a helpful table showing the end contents of all of the surviving MSS of CA and VC. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.2.] 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 Last Words: Latin at the End of the Confessio Amantis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available University of Toronto Press, 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 Sobecki brings together studies of five poets--Gower, Hoccleve, Caudray, Lydgate, and Ashby--as, in a sense, test cases for a theory of the medieval self as what he terms "indexical": "the indexical self is not a discrete entity . . . it is comprised of social interactions, contexts, and relationships. It could even be argued that the indexical self is not strictly a self in that it cannot exist outside of its social context" (11). To illustrate this via Gower, Sobecki focuses on London, British Library, MS Additional 59495 (olim Trentham), owned by Gower at his death, and more specifically two poems from that manuscript, "In Praise of Peace" and "Henrici Quarti primus" (also known as "Quicquid homo scribat" or "In fine"). The argument of the chapter on Gower (19-64) is primarily the same as presented in a previously published article, "Ecce patet tensus': The Trentham Manuscript, 'In Praise of Peace,' and John Gower's Autograph Hand," Speculum 90 (2015): 925-59 (see online Gower bibliography), although recast to reflect the book's different, and larger, purpose. [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Sobecki, Sebastian. Published Sobecki, Sebastian. Last Words: The Public Self and the Social Author in Late Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 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 Last Words: The Public Self and the Social Author in Late Medieval England. 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 "Tracing the emergence of the author function in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, during which writers began to name themselves and their other works in their own texts, this project examines the hitherto ignored role that prophetic self-representation played in the construction of medieval authorial personae. Building upon already established connections between classical authorship and prophecy, medieval authors exploited the prophetic subject position in order to clarify their function as mediators between subject and audience. More than a mask from behind which to safely advance political critiques, the persona of the prophet allowed medieval authors to define the nature of their authority and their relationships to their readers. The first half of this project examines the works of two authors, John Gower and Christine de Pizan, who use prophecy to assert their superior analytical skills. Although both authors draw heavily from the tradition of the prophet Daniel, a prophet known for his inspired interpretive abilities, they claim their inspiration from entirely different sources. Gower represents himself as being prophetically inspired by the public voice, which under the maxim, 'Vox populi,vox Dei,' is divine. Gower consistently represents himself as the public prophet of England in the 'Mirour de l'Omme,' the 'Vox Clamantis,' and the 'Confessio Amantis.' Christine de Pizan, on the other hand, promotes her career in the traditionally masculine fields of literature and politics by implying that her gender gives her prophetic intuition. . . . The second half of this project looks at the work of two authors, William Langland and Margery Kempe." [JGN 33.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fonzo, Kimberly L Published Fonzo, Kimberly L. "Late medieval authorship and the prophetic tradition." PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2013. Open access at https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/45609 (accessed January 22, 2023). Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis 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 Late medieval authorship and the prophetic tradition. 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 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 This article deals with five late medieval English poets, focusing on their choice to "present themselves to us in the speaking voice of . . . a framing persona" (250). Payne begins with a warning against our post-Romantic expectation that the author-persona's voice will disclose the personal feelings of the author himself (249). For Payne, the question to ask is how the poets used their author-persona to propose their own "alternative models of the poetic process," with "significantly different models . . . seen." In general, both Chaucer and Gower preferred the model whereby "readers of poems . . . listen to other fallible men speaking" rather taking in ideas from an unquestioned voice of authority (250). Both Chaucer and Gower used their persona-voices to communicate--or so they tell their readers--the wisdom of ancient sources, never acknowledging a recent or an English source (252). Both use humility topoi--e.g. the befuddled "Geffrey" in the "Hous of Fame," doddering old Gower in the "Vox" and the "Confessio"--to humanize their voice, yet still convey wisdom (253). There are differences. Per Payne, Chaucer changes his persona from poem to poem to fit his purposes, while "Gower" is one character throughout, and unlike Chaucer, Gower is "never comic" (253). There is no acknowledgment of the way that Gower himself used the term "persona" as he switched personas to speak as the ludicrous Amans. Despite his frailties, the Gower-persona has wisdom to impart--from his "auctores . . . [like himself] a succession of good old boys" (254). In his discussion of the three later poets, Payne describes the persistence of the "speaking" voice in their use of the persona, while noting a watershed difference--all three poets present themselves as legatees of a great English tradition, mainly personified by Chaucer (255-60). [LBB. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Payne, Robert O. Published Payne, Robert O. "Late Medieval Images and Self-Images of the Poet: Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar." In Lois Ebin, ed. Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1984). Pp. 249-61. Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric , and Versification Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations 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 Late Medieval Images and Self-Images of the Poet: Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar. 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor van Es, Bart. Published van Es, Bart. "Late Shakespeare and the Middle Ages." In Medieval Shakespeare: Pasts and Presents. Ed. Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper, and Peter Holland. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 37-51. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion Confessio Amantis Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Review Noting that in Shakespeare's late plays "'romance' no longer blends [as it did in earlier plays] but instead becomes conspicuous," van Es takes up "the conspicuous presence of archaic ways of being and telling," linking it to "the emergence of the cultural category of 'the Middle Ages' in the early seventeenth century" (37). "Pericles" presents a case-in-point. For van Es, the character of Gower is largely misread by contemporary critics. Observing that Thomas Berthelette's edition of the "Confessio Amantis" would have been Shakespeare's source text for "Pericles," he employs Tim Machan's characterization of Gower in that edition as a "humanist" (JGN 17.2) to offset the self-consciously medieval gestures (e.g., the tournament, the dumb shows) inserted into the play but not found in Shakespeare's "Confessio" text (38-41). Van Es points out that this "Tudor" Gower was considered a father of English poetry and a refiner or the language (43), but by 1607, the date of "Pericles," he had become comic. What happened? Apparently, Cervantes, who "made the medieval narrator a figure of fun" (46). Shakespeare's collaborator on "Pericles," George Wilkins, was "in the vanguard of the movement of early seventeenth-century playwrights who responded to Cervantes: Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, Nathan Field, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher" (47). "Ancient Gower's" character in "Pericles," in van Es's view, "can be tracked with precision to the years 1605 to 1607. Shakespeare's oeuvre sits astride this temporal fault line, so that the late plays become at once more modern and more medieval than those that came before" (51). N.B.: van Es remarks on Gower's "shift from a Yorkist to the Lancastrian camp" (42), apparently confusing Richard III with Richard II. [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 38.2.] 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 Late Shakespeare and the Middle Ages. 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 The influence of medieval romance is omnipresent throughout the plays of Shakespeare. In the late plays, however, it becomes "conspicuous" to the point of defining a Shakespearean "romance" genre of its own (37). A prime example of "'the medieval' in Shakespeare" is the character Gower in "Pericles: 564 ff., as he narrates an episode of knights in armor not found in any source for the play, including the "Confessio Amantis" (38). Why such "deviation from precedent," including the "remarkable decision to use Gower as presenter" . . . [speaking in] "old-fashioned tetrameters" that would have sounded, to a "sophisticated" audience, decidedly "then" as opposed to "now" (40)? This semi-comic Gower (1607 or later) is in stark contrast with the poet's sixteenth-century reputation for "authority, moral weight, and contemporary relevance," as well as a humanistic devotion to "renew[ing] the vernacular" and excellence of English style (42), per Berthelette, Spenser, Gabriel Harvey, and Robert Greene (41-43). What explains this skeptical new approach to Gower and medieval romance? "Shakespeare's oeuvre sits across [the] temporal fault line" (51) of 1605, when the term "Middle Age" was first used by William Camden to define the centuries in between the classics and the Elizabethan revival of learning. Camden "values [the Middle Age] as one of high martial honour and poetic passion, but also stresses its lack of decorum" (44). The year 1605 also saw the publication of "Don Quixote," with its new "authorial self-consciousness" and "delicate irony" at the expense of the still-"admire[d]," but now "outmoded" conventions of medieval romance (45-46). In his latest plays including "Pericles," Shakespeare manipulates the perception of "antiquity . . . artificiality" and "Cervantean play" to heighten the effect of "an old tale," deploying "characters [such as Gower who] articulate the fictive quality of the events that they see unfold" (49). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 41.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor van Es, Bart. Published van Es, Bart. "Late Shakespeare and the Middle Ages," in Medieval Shakespeare: Pasts and Presents, ed. Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper, and Peter Holland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 37-51. 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 Late Shakespeare and the Middle Ages. 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 Like Chaucer and Froissart, Gower is a member of an English courtly tradition fostered by Richard II. The CA was written in an "unobtrusive" style, with much careful artistry and "genuine polish." Brief analysis of several short passages from the CA. [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Gray, Douglas. Bolton, W. F., ed. Published Gray, Douglas. "Later Poetry: The Courtly Tradition." W. F. Bolton, ed. The Middle Ages. Sphere History of Literature in the English Language, vol. 1. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1970, p. 312, 316-20. 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 Later Poetry: The Courtly Tradition. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 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 tales of the CA "purport to be exempla." [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Woolf, Rosemary. Bolton, W. F., ed. Published Woolf, Rosemary. "Later Poetry: The Popular Tradition." W. F. Bolton, ed. The Middle Ages. Sphere History of Literature in the English Language, vol. 1. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1970, p. 265. Gower Subject Confesio Amantis 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 Later Poetry: The Popular Tradition. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 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 Reopens the question of Gower's relation to Boethius "De Consolatione Philosophiae" and to the well-known allegorical works that derived from it, notably Alan de Lille's "De Planctu Naturae" and RR. DCP, he claims, is less straightforward a work than is usually supposed, for in the dialogue between Lady Philosophy and the "Prisoner," its broadest philosophical affirmations are consistently punctuated, and undermined, by existential doubt. It also leaves unresolved a contradiction between two roles attributed to Nature: one the benevolent universal order, and the other, a constraint upon the freedom and aspirations of the individual. DPN preserves the same ambiguity regarding Nature and creates the same sort of irresolution, but it also suggests a different way of measuring human love in its brief echoes of the diction of courtly vernacular poetry. Jean de Meun's portion of RR continues the interplay of the "courtly" and "cosmic" perspectives, setting the model for CA. Gower's poem is also concerned with the relation between human life and the larger natural order, but like all of these, it sees this relation largely in terms of uncertainty rather than resolution. The Prologue, for instance, raises a number of serious issues, but offers no coherent definition of man's "nature" or of his relation to the larger cosmos. The same uncertainty is reflected in other ways in Gower's design. The functions of the dialogue in DCP, Wetherbee claims, are taken over in Gower's poem by the interplay between the Latin and the English portions of the text. The authority of the Latin tradition, moreover, is consistently undermined by being (literally) marginalized, and through the persistent, calculated ambiguities of the Latin head-verses. Genius is less a spokesman for a particular view in this plan than a mediator between the Latin and vernacular worlds of meaning, but he himself has no basis for resolving their conflicting claims. He also tries to create a relationship between the exemplary tales and Amans, the lover who is the prisoner of courtly convention, expressing the difficulty of applying Latin tradition to the "radically vernacular world" of the main body of the poem. Genius is marked by an "enlightened naturalism" and an instinctive sense of "kynde" and reason that offers one sort of mediation between the conflicting claims on human behavior, but his insight remains only tentative, and the poem finally offers no clear and definitive statement on the problem of human self-governance. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 11.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Wetherbee, Winthrop Published Wetherbee, Winthrop. "Latin Structure and Vernacular Space: Gower, Chaucer and the Boethian Tradition." In Chaucer and Gower: Difference, Mutuality, Exchange. Ed. Yeager, R.F.. ELS Monograph Series (51). Victoria, B.C.: English Literary Studies, 1991, pp. 7-35. 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 Latin Structure and Vernacular Space: Gower, Chaucer and the Boethian Tradition Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available English Literary Studies, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 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 Warner, Lawrence Published Warner, Lawrence. "Latin Verses by John Gower and 'John of Bridlington' in a Piers Plowman Manuscript (BL Add. 35287)." Notes and Queries 55 (2008), pp. 127-31. ISSN 0029-3970 Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies Cronica Tripertita Review Identifies two Latin items on the final verso of BL Add. 35287, a copy of "Piers Plowman" B, as coming from Gower's "Cronica Tripertite" ("Tristia post leta. post tristia sepe," III.1) and "The Prophecy of John of Bridlington" (it is unclear whether they are in the same hand). The presence of the Gower tag here is particularly remarkable given George Shuffelton's discovery that the recto of this folio contains another Gowerian Leonine verse, "Explicit iste liber qui obsecro transeat liber," which introduces the closing envoy of the "Confessio Amantis." The relationship between these two tags remains obscure. In any case, this is only the second known medieval reference to the CrT apart from (?after) that work's initial copying, the other being two marginal verses added into BL Lansdowne 204, fols 196v, 204r, the sole manuscript of the first recension of Hardyng's "Chronicle" (post 1457). [LW] 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 Latin Verses by John Gower and "John of Bridlington" in a "Piers Plowman" Manuscript (BL Add. 35287) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008 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 verses--"Tristia post leta. post tristia sepe quieta," "Explicit iste liber qui obsecro transeat liber"--are, respectively, the first line of Book III of the "Cronica Tripertita" and the first line of the final envoy of the "Confessio Amantis" (with "obsecro" and "transeat" in reversed positions). Both are by different hands datable after the fourteenth century, and thus Warner sees them as indications of the "afterlives" of Gower's poems. In the case of the former, this is especially significant, since "BL 35287 contains only the second known medieval reference to the 'Cronica Tripertita'" [130], the other being in a copy of "Hardyng's Chronicle," BL MS Lansdowne 204, fols 196v and 204r. [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 41.1] (But see Eric Weiskott "John Gower and 'John of Bridlington': An Unnoticed Borrowing." Notes and Queries 68.2 (2021): 160-62). Author/Editor Author/Editor Warner, Lawrence. Published Warner, Lawrence. "Latin Verses by John Gower and 'John of Bridlington' in a Piers Plowman Manuscript (BL Add. 35287)." Notes and Queries 55.2 (2008): 127-31. Gower Subject Influence and Later Allusion 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 Latin Verses by John Gower and "John of Bridlington" in a "Piers Plowman" Manuscript (BL Add. 35287). 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 Leonard argues that the double vision of comedy (what is versus what should be) is compatible with the doubleness of allegory (literal and allegorical meanings), and explores how Chaucer and related poets (Gower, Dunbar, Douglas, Hawes, Skelton, Spenser, and others) capitalize upon the connection in courtly love poetry. According to Leonard, the comedy of Gower's CA lacks Chaucer's exuberance; both poets agree that the "path to wisdom is outside the Court of Love," but Gower's comedy is "low-keyed because of Gower's apparent mistrust of either ecstasy or depression." Leonard comments on similarities between CA and Dante's "Divine Comedy," on the encyclopedic nature of CA, its digressions, and its confessional mode. She explores the "figurative and literal presence of Christ in the poem," and locates its comedy in only three of the exemplary stories, in Amans's recognition of himself as an Old Man in Venus's mirror, and in Genius's transformation from "encyclopedia to wisdom." This change in Genius from "love-tutor" to "true priest" is what "provides the human comedy of the poem," while Venus's "rise, however temporarily, from the level of cupidity to charity," helps us to "laugh at sin and error" and "find comfort in virtue." Author/Editor Author/Editor Leonard, Frances McNeely Published Leonard, Frances McNeely. "Laughter in the Courts of Love: Comedy in Allegory, from Chaucer to Spenser." Norman, OK: Pilgrim Books, 1981 ISBN 0937664545 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 Laughter in the Courts of Love: Comedy in Allegory, from Chaucer to Spenser Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Pilgrim Books, 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 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 No Gower material included. [RFY1981; rev. MA]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Busch, Emil. Published Busch, Emil. "Laut- und Formenlehre der Anglo-Normannischen Sprache des XIV. Jahrhunderts." Ph.D. dissertation. Greifswald University, 1887. 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 Laut- und Formenlehre der Anglo-Normannischen Sprache des XIV. Jahrhunderts. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1887 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 Coleman takes another look at the different components of the text of CA from the point of view of reception. Each portion - the English poem, the Latin glosses, and the Latin verse epigrams - not only serves a different function but also presumes a different linguistic capability and thus a different audience. The primary audience of the poem - its two dedicatees - would have been at home with the English, and they probably could have made out the gist of the glosses but would not necessarily have had the experience with textual interpretation to discover the disjunction between text and gloss that some modern scholars have observed. With their limited Latin, they would have been completely at sea with the epigrams. The "secondary audience" that Gower may have had in mind, the knights and civil servants that included several men with real interest in literature such as Usk, Hoccleve, and Chaucer, were evidently only slightly better equipped in Latin. The poets among them wrote exclusively in English, and only Strode, Coleman surmises, if he was the man that we suppose, would have been able to make sense of the Latin verses. (It is a bit of a shock to realize that they were probably out of reach of Chaucer.) Only trained clerics of the sort for whom Gower intended VC would have been fully able to appreciate the Latin verse, but they could not have been the intended audience because they would have had little desire for a poem in English and little need for the particular sort of wisdom that it offers. The solution to this complex riddle, Coleman suggests, lies in imagining an oral reading of the text by a clerical "prelector" to an audience of those who were only truly functional in English. Both the English and the Latin verses, she notes, refer to the text as being heard by others, but only the lector or interpres would have access to the entire page. He would interpret - both translate and comment upon - the Latin verses after reading them aloud, and he would use the glosses as a guide to commenting on the morality that is offered by the English text. Such a performance would vary not only according to the skill of the reader but also to the tastes and predilections of the audience that employed him and whom he was trying to please. By this account, the last line of the first epigram in CA - "et interpres stet procul oro malus" ["and let the interpretor evil in speech stand at a distance"] - becomes a plea, rather like Chaucer's to "Adam Scriveyn," for the proper oral transmission of his text; and the poet's lack of direct control over the performance is, as Coleman notes, a challenge to many of the assumptions that we all tacitly make as we derive meaning from our own silent and private reading. As part of her argument, Coleman has some interesting observations on the precedents for both the glosses and the epigrams, suggesting that the former are more homiletic in flavor than academic and tracing the latter to a tradition of Latin disputation that originated in verse contests in the schools; and in the most speculative part of her essay, she suggests the names of several men attached to John of Gaunt's household who might have served as the original prelectors of Gower's poem. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society: JGN 22.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Coleman, Joyce Published Coleman, Joyce. "Lay Readers and Hard Latin: How Gower May Have Intended the Confessio Amantis to be Read." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 24 (2002), pp. 209-234. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Language and Word Studies 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 Lay Readers and Hard Latin: How Gower May Have Intended the Confessio Amantis to be Read Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2002 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 very brief article considers CA and T&C as illustrations of the "code of love." "The lover must know how to speak of love; . . . The lover and his lady most know how to compose poems and letters, to sing, to dance; . . ." etc. In CA, one discovers the requirements of this code by finding the opposites of the vices that Genius condemns. Not only do the two poems share this code, but they both depict an unhappy love, and both also end in a somewhat unexpected fashion: in CA, contrary to the confessor's recommendations of patience and hope, Venus banishes Amans from the domain of courtly love literature by identifying him as the aging John Gower, bringing the poet into the text in flesh and blood as Chaucer does in his "Retraction." Crépin concludes with a note of disagreement with Katherine Heinrich's argument (in The Myths of Love [1990]), that medieval writers drew upon classical story exclusively for tales of amorous folly. There is too much variety in the interpretation of classical heroes and heroines in medieval poems, and Gower himself is able to use these characters as illustrations of Christian truths. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 15.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Crépin, André Published Crépin, André. "Le Code Amoureux d'après la Confessio Amantis de Gower et le Troilus de Chaucer." In La 'Fin'Amor' dans la culture féodale. Actes du colloque du Centre d'Etudes Médiévales de l'Université de Picardie Jules Verne; Amiens, mars 1991. Ed. UNSPECIFIED. Greifswald: Reineke, 1994, pp. 67-72. 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 Le Code Amoureux d'après la Confessio Amantis de Gower et le Troilus de Chaucer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reineke, 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 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 focus of this essay is Gower's decasyllables in CB and Traitié, building upon Macaulay's observation that Gower's meter appears to represent a blending of an English accentual measure with the French syllabic measure in the contemporary "vers de dix." Like Macaulay, the authors give close, in fact far more detailed, attention to Gower's frequent violation of the rules governing the use of the caesura in the French decasyllable, which they attribute to Gower's adoption of a predominantly accentual meter beginning with the octosyllables of both MO and CA. The iambic decasyllable of the later poems thus represents less an adaptation of the French "vers de dix" than an extension of the accentual meter from an 8-syllable to a l0-syllable line, following the example set by Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde, who followed in turn the example of Il Filostrato, which he discovered during his journey to Italy in 1378. Gower and Chaucer are depicted as joint experimenters in English metrics, Gower providing the example for Chaucer of the virtues of the regular accentual iambic line. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 28.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Billy, Dominique Duffell, Martin J Published Billy, Dominique and Duffell, Martin J. "Le Decasyllabe de John Gower ou Le Dernier Metre Anglo-Normand." Revue de Linguistique Romane 69 (2005), pp. 75-95. ISSN 0035-1458 Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Cinkante Balades Traitié pour Essampler les Amants Marietz 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 Decasyllabe de John Gower ou Le Dernier Metre Anglo-Normand 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 Summarizes "Rosiphelee" [CA, Book IV, 1245-1448) and places the story in the tradition of the "Cruel Beauties." [RFY1981]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Grimes, E. Margaret. Published Grimes, E. Margaret. "Le Lay du Trot." Romanic Review 26 (1935): 315-16. 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 Le Lay du Trot. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935