20 100 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Ganim, John M Published Ganim, John M. "Gower, Liminality, and the Politics of Space." Exemplaria 19 (2007), pp. 90-116. ISSN 1041-2573 Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Review Ganim has come a long way in his thinking since presenting the germ of this article in a paper entitled "Gower le flâneur" in a Gower Society-sponsored session at the 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in 2004. Then Ganim found much to be said for viewing Gower as just such a figure of "flânérie"--a term borrowed from Walter Benjamin which Ganim defines here as "the archetypal modern subject…the modern urban observer" (112). At present juncture, however, his extensive probing of Gower's "liminalities" (N.B., although Ganim himself uses only the singular, the plural seems appropriate, given his apparent effort here to provide examples of borderlines of every sort and kind, from geographic boundaries to instances of mobility qua mobility in Book I of the Vox Clamantis and variously throughout the Confessio Amantis) has led Ganim to the precisely opposite conclusion, that "In many ways, both historically and formally, Benjamin's flâneur is very different than the wandering subject in Gower" (113); and this is because "his [Gower's] perspective is not one of detachment, even allegorical detachment, but an attachment to things as they were and should be once again, an attachment simultaneously nostalgic and utopian" (112). Gower himself, it would seem (N.B.: Ganim regularly uses "Gower" to refer to the poet and to Gower's oeuvre) comes rather close to it: his "predicament nevertheless prefigures the contradictory position of the modern subject, and suggests, in his [i.e., Gower's] obsession with liminality, at least one way of accommodating those contradictions" (113). But Ganim's primary interest lies not in Gower the individual, but rather in deciphering "Gower's largest effort, his search for a unified field theory of his world, one in which the ethical, the social, the rhetorical, the spiritual and the poetic work from the same position towards the same end" (110). Ultimately Gower cannot achieve the cohesion he seeks, however: "The analysis of space in Gower [sic] suggests that the liminal geographies and settings of his works hold contradictions and confusions in suspension, almost symptomatically (rather than intentionally) exposing a gap between the analysis of social [sic] and the personal division that is the initial focus of Gower's complaint and the transcendent and idealized solutions he offers….Reliance on a liminal imaginative geography suggests how complicated, and ultimately compromised, were Gower's efforts to align his ethical, political and poetic agendas into one coherent discourse" (113). While this is hardly an original claim--one can trace its origins to David Aers and Larry Scanlon in the 1990's, at least in so far as Ganim calls attention to the frequent contradiction between Gower's goals and his perception of realpolitik--there is nonetheless great and valuable material here, particularly in its extensive bibliography, and application of au courant discussions of "space" defined very widely indeed. This reader was particularly grateful for the breadth and depth of Ganim's resources. The following editorial issues should be noted, however: pp. 104-105, the translation of Mirour de l'Omme ll. 26497-505 is mis-numbered as ll.26497-508, and the translator mis-cited as "Burton" instead of William Burton Wilson (the full reference to Wilson's translation is correct in the bibliography); and on p. 105 as well, see fn. 8, which would seem to concern Constance C. Relihan's work on Shakespeare's Pericles but instead, to the puzzlement of this reader, cites Sheila Delany's fine article "Geographies of Desire: Orientalism in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women."] [RFY. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.2] 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 Gower, Liminality, and the Politics of Space Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Using the evidence of Gower's internally datable poems, Carlson is able to construct a pattern in the development of the poet's use of rhyme as a stylistic ornament in his Latin verse. Gower's first compositions – the earliest portions of VC – are in the "relatively more informal and conversational" (15) unrhymed elegiac distichs. Leonine verses – in which the word preceding the caesura rhymes with the final word in the line – do occur, but at a rate (around 20%) consistent with chance, given the limited number of word endings in Latin, and most of these are monosyllabic rather than disyllabic. Some evidence of the use of rhyme for rhetorical effect can be found in passages in which leonines appear in higher than normal concentration, which tend to occur at the beginnings or endings of important sections. The opposite extreme is provided by the more elevated, more serious, and more ornate hexameters of CrT, with regularly occurring disyllabic rhyme. The Latin epigrams in CA are in the style of VC: the final six hexameters, however ("Explicit iste liber . . .") are in the style of CrT, and the couplet rhyme in the third and fourth lines suggests (as Siân Echard recently argued) that the two verses that follow, beginning "Derbeie Comiti," should be regarded as a separate poem. The turning point in Gower's use of rhyme, according to Carlson, is the "Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia" of 1396-97, which mixes unrhymed sections largely lifted from VC with new passages in leonine hexameters, heavy with disyllabic rhyme, with the most ornate passages, incorporating rhyming couplets or repeated rhymes, again marking the beginnings and endings of sections of the poem. With these as his points of reference, Carlson suggests some revisions in the chronology of the less easily dated works. "Ecce patet tensus," in unrhymed elegiac distichs, he places before the 1390s. (R.F. Yeager, who had access to Carlson's essay in advance of publication, suggests on other grounds a date of 1398 in his recent edition of Gower's Minor Latin Works, p. 72; see JGN 26 no. 1 (April 2007): 19-22.) The poems with heavier use of rhyme, on the other hand, would be later, including "O Deus Immense," in the same style as CrT, and "Tractatus de lucis scrutinio," despite its similarities in content to VC. (Yeager, p. 55, suggests a date of 1392-95.) Carlson also proposes different periods for the revisions in VC, but he also suggests some caution, noting on the basis of "Rex Celi Deus" that "even after he began to work with disyllabic rhyme, Gower retained considerable tolerance for unrhymed lines and monosyllables" (46). Carlson concludes with some speculations on the driving force in Gower's stylistic development, whether it had a "strictly literary-internal genesis" (49) or was related to a literary effort to reassert "right order" after Henry's usurpation; and he finally links Gower's more ornate style to "the same self-monumentalizing ambitions represented by Gower's late editorial business over his own work" (50) as he organized his literary legacy in his final years. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Carlson, David R Published Carlson, David R. "A Rhyme Distribution Chronology of John Gower's Latin Poetry." Studies in Philology 104 (2007), pp. 15-55. ISSN 0039-3738 Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Vox Clamantis Minor Latin Poetry 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 A Rhyme Distribution Chronology of John Gower's Latin Poetry Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "Scribe D" is one of five scribes who worked on the copy of CA that is now Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.3.2, as identified by Ian Doyle and Malcolm Parkes in their celebrated 1978 essay, and his hand has been found in eleven other MSS, including seven more of CA, two of CT, and one of PP. On the basis of the spellings found in these copies, his origins have been traced to the SW Midlands, specifically to Worcestershire. Horobin and Mosser argue, however, that the SW Midlands forms in his copies of Chaucer and Langland derive not from his own dialect but from the spellings of his exemplars, a conclusion consistent with data that Jeremy Smith has presented from Scribe D's copies of Gower. D appears to have been remarkably conservative in his attitude towards his exemplars, an observation that may require a reconsideration of the chronology of his work. It also suggests "a considerable tolerance of dialect variation within London English, indicating that the establishment of a London standard language was a later, and more gradual phenomenon, than has previously been considered" (304). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Horobin, Simon, Mosser, Daniel W Published Horobin, Simon, and Mosser, Daniel W. "Scribe D's SW Midland Roots: A Reconsideration." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 106 (2005), pp. 289-305. ISSN 0028-3754 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies 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 Scribe D's SW Midland Roots: A Reconsideration 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 This new volume is really two editions in one. Since "In Praise of Peace" arises out of very much the same political and biographical circumstances as the majority of Gower's short Latin poems, no one will object to the juxtaposition, but since the two parts have different editors, they will be treated separately here. The "Minor Latin Works," which occupy about two-thirds of the volume, include "De Lucis Scrutinio," "Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia," and the poems such as "O Deus immense," "Ecce patet tensus," and "Rex celi deus," which we are accustomed to seeing referred to by their opening words since they do not bear titles in the MSS; plus Gower's prose colophon, "Quia unusquisque," and "Eneidos Bucolis," which the headnote in the MSS attributes to "quidam Philosophus." (In his headnote, Yeager points out that Macaulay prints the poem among Gower's other works while also conjecturing that it was written by Ralph Strode. Yeager himself presents the best case for believing that it was actually written by Gower, but he places it in an Appendix.) The fifteen poems (including "Eneidos Bucolis") range in length from 4 lines to 320, and they are of varying interest. But they are complete, and now, since in addition to Stockton, Echard and Fanger, and Wilson, we also have Andrew Galloway's translations of the complete Latin apparatus to the Confessio in Peck's new three-volume edition, almost everything that Gower wrote in a language other than English is now available in English (we lack only the shorter French works, the Traitié and the Cinkante Balades), and those of us who have resisted the effort now have no excuse for remaining unfamiliar with these last bits and pieces of Gower's work. Yeager's text is based on the same MSS as Macaulay's, and in the passages I checked, it is virtually identical, except for editorial punctuation, the use of indentation, Yeager's use of boldface to indicate the larger capitals, and the rendering of u and v. The greatest difference from Macaulay's edition is that where his predecessor printed the poems in the order in which they normally appear in the MSS, Yeager has chosen to present them in the order of composition, as best this can be determined. He acknowledges the necessity of some uncertainty here (pp. 9-10), but the effort is consistent with the invitation that virtually all of these poems make to read them with reference to some specific event, either in English history or in the life of the poet. The translations, which appear en face of the Latin text, are meant to be useful to the largest possible number of readers. Yeager makes no effort to imitate the poetic qualities of the original, nor does he resort to prose: he does his best to translate the text line by line (though that's not always practical; cf. "Carmen" 13-14), but not word by word or by preserving Latin grammatical structure at the expense of English. Thus "Carmen" 1-2, "Non excusatur qui verum non fateatur, / Ut sic ponatur modus unde fides recolatur" becomes "He who does not confess the truth is not excused / From finding a way to act in good faith." The emphasis is on preserving the sense but in such a way as to direct the reader's attention back to the Latin whenever possible. It's a good compromise, and while the translator can't hope to please everyone all the time (I myself have a couple of very small quibbles), the effect overall is a great success. What truly makes this volume indispensable for any serious study, however, is the apparatus. Compared to Yeager, Macaulay gives these poems amazingly short shrift. There is virtually no notice of them in the prefatory material to volume 4 of his edition of Gower's works, and the notes at the back (which are roughly evenly split among textual notes, explanatory notes, and some comments on sources) occupy less than five pages. Yeager provides an excellent seven-page introduction, describing the stylistic qualities of Gower's Latin verse, placing these poems among Gower's other works, justifying their importance both as historical documents and for what they can tell us about the poet, and providing a brief but detailed account of the events leading up to Richard II's deposition and death that provide the setting in which most of these poems were written. He also provides 32 closely packed pages of notes. There he gives answers to every basic question about the text, the metrical form, the thematic structure, the sources, and the best guess for the date of each of these texts, plus explanations of the historical allusions and citations of similar passages in Gower's other works. Some of this information is drawn, of course, from the work of other scholars, who are duly cited. Yeager also preserves the most useful of Macaulay's notes, though he can also be found taking polite issue with him from time to time. Not all of the notes will be required by all users: the explanation of the Great Schism, for instance (p. 56, note to "De Lucis Scrutinio" 4), is clearly intended for students rather than scholars, consistent with the purposes of the series in which the volume appears. But Yeager is everywhere judicious and each note has a discernible value to some likely reader of this book, and most (such as his full account of the Biblical allusions in the poems) will, like his translations, be welcomed by professional users as well as by those we teach. "In Praise of Peace" is neither as inaccessible nor as poorly known as the shorter Latin works: Macaulay includes the 385-line poem in the second volume of his edition of the Confessio, his edition is sound and has an adequate if not extensive apparatus, and the poem is, after all, in Middle English rather than Latin. It has also received its fair share of comment, particularly from those who have been concerned to trace Gower's political allegiances during the last decade of his life. Livingston's task is rather different from Yeager's, therefore: there is much less basic work to be done, and he thus uses his new edition as an opportunity to offer his own detailed critical reading of the poem. The text poses few problems: there is only the Trentham MS plus Thynne's not very good 1532 print. For the comparison between MS and print Livingston refers the reader to Macaulay's notes (p. 105). His own textual notes (p. 133) are few: they include 12 instances in which he has chosen to follow the MS where Macaulay followed Thynne, 17 instances in which he has rejected Macaulay's emendation, and 4 other notes of miscellaneous character. Most of Livingston's differences from Macaulay are very minor and amount to little more than the inclusion or omission of a final -e. Livingston has also introduced some silent emendations of his own, consistent with the practice of the TEAMS series: for instance, thee for the (to distinguish the pronoun from the article; e.g. lines 3, 92) and for to in place of forto (e.g. lines 7, 33 – one of the very features for which Macaulay took Wright to task for his edition of the poem: Works 3.551). Like Peck, in his edition of CA, Livingston consistently transcribes yogh as g, even where y would almost certainly be more appropriate (e.g. give, line 190); and he also introduces modern capitalization (God, Y) and punctuation. The biggest differences from Macaulay in the presentation of the text, however, are in the inclusion of glosses to the "hard" words (he evidently anticipates readers with virtually no familiarity with Middle English) and in the numbering of the stanzas. Livingston has also included a much fuller apparatus: 16 pages of introduction and another 13 of notes, both of which are set into even greater relief by Yeager's comparative restraint. The introduction in particular reads more like a critical essay than like a guide to the study of the poem, as Livingston seeks to overturn some of what he terms the "simplistic reductions" of earlier criticism (p. 90). There is certainly abundant precedent (Peck may again have been the model here), but the result does tend to overwhelm the poem. Livingston argues that "In Praise of Peace" proceeds "in careful, logical steps" (p. 94) and that its division – into nine marked sections plus an additional stanza – has a numerological significance that is closely related to its theme; and as proof of its "subtle craft" (p. 101), he presents a detailed, four-page summary of the poem, section by section. His argument certainly deserves to be read, and while it may not fully overcome the impression that, like much of Gower's moral and political writing, the compendiousness of "In Praise of Peace" is organized more by free association than it is by logic, it will have served its purpose if it forces us to take a closer look at the poem. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F., trans. Livingston, Michael, trans Published Yeager, R.F., trans. and Livingston, Michael, trans. "The Minor Latin Works." Middle English Texts Series . Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2005 ISBN 9781580440974 Gower Subject In Praise of Peace Minor Latin Poetry Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Minor Latin Works Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Medieval Institute Publications, 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 Book PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Glaser, Joseph, trans Published Glaser, Joseph, trans. "Middle English Poetry in Modern Verse." Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2007 ISBN 9780872208803 Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Confessio Amantis Review Glaser includes "versions of poems from about 1200 to 1500" of various kinds, attempting to represent "a broad sampling of Middle English poetry" (ix), and states his intention "to honor the original meaning, meter and rhyme scheme while at the same time producing versions modern readers will enjoy" (xi). In his section entitled "Selections" he translates excerpts from Piers Plowman (B text), "The Squire of Low Degree," Douglas's translation of the Aeneid, and "Ceix and Alcyone" from Confessio Amantis Book IV, 2927-3123. His source for his text is J.A.W. Bennett's Selections from John Gower (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968). Each section is prefaced by a brief introduction--in Gower's case, identifying Amans as "Gower himself" (133); there is a short bibliography of editions and critical studies and indices of titles and first lines in Middle English. [RFY. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] 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 Middle English Poetry in Modern Verse Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hackett Publishing, 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 PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Fox "seeks to elucidate Gower's reception not only of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (as Latinized by Grosseteste and adapted by Trevisa) but also of the moralizations on Ovidian texts, and to analyze how these traditions influence the goals of the Confessio." For Fox, "Genius employs the 'Tale of Medusa' to mirror the paralysis, impaired will, and confused desires of Amans, and uses it to argue for an ethical agenda that is practical, rather than theoretical in nature." She finds the tale "sourced in the moralizing commentaries on the Metamorphoses and the exempla of thirteenth-century sermons;" in Gower's hands, however, the tale becomes "an Aristotelian practical ethic to emphasize the importance of productive, directed action and the role of individual agency in that action." [RFY. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fox, Hilary E Published Fox, Hilary E. "'Min herte is growen into ston': Ethics and Activity in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Comitatus 36 (2005), pp. 15-40. ISSN 0069-6412 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Min herte is growen into ston': Ethics and Activity in John Gower's Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Many Gowerians were first introduced to Robert Greene's 1594 Greenes Vision, with its presentation of a fictionalized debate between Gower and Chaucer, by Helen Cooper's delightful essay in Echard's Companion to Gower (see JGN 24, no. 1). Dimmick pursues the analysis of Greene's work in greater depth. From his own abstract: "The guest appearances by Chaucer and Gower in Greenes Vision reflect a fifteenth- and sixteenth-century tradition of paired citation; here they represent rival literary values and styles, exploited by Greene in a complex and playful mock-repentance. While Greene claims to be moving away from a licentious, Chaucerian comedy, he is really expanding his range to incorporate the farcical vein of the recently published anonymous Cobler of Canterburie, and the tale offered by Gower as a corrective to the former follies of Greene's pen in fact closely resembles his earlier romances. Within the vision the authority of both the poets is dismissed when King Solomon appears to reject every study except Theology; what appears to be a dramatic conversion from folly to wisdom is in fact a much more playful and unstable piece in which all claims to literary authority come to look suspect." Despite the wildly inaccurate portrayal of Gower in this rivalry and the lack of any evidence of any actual stylistic influence on the tale that Greene attributes to him, Dimmick suggests that the entire presentation is based on a "genuine critical engagement" with the issues of morality and authority that are posed in both Chaucer's and Gower's works. [PN. COpyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Dimmick, Jeremy Published Dimmick, Jeremy. "Gower, Chaucer and the Art of Repentance in Robert Greene's Vision." Review of English Studies 57 (2006), pp. 456-73. ISSN 0034-6551 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 Gower, Chaucer and the Art of Repentance in Robert Greene's Vision Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006 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 "As in the vernaculars aristocratic coterie entertainments and vulgar literary performances ("minstrelcy" and "popular tales") were supplemented (though not displaced) by broader treatments, of matter of broader import, for broader audiences, so too in Latin the post-plague fourteenth century in England saw poets inventing subject-matters for their work, of interest beyond the more narrowly clerical matters to which they theretofore restricted themselves, and inventing modes of address to go with such subject-matters, appropriate for addressing potentially interested non-clerical parties, as well as a widened range of persons having some clerical status. The later fourteenth-century Anglo-Latin poets' invention of broader secular subjects and audiences for their Latin writings was matched too by their invention of a simpler, more broadly apprehensible style, involving unrhymed dactylic verse" (390). The central figure in Carlson's stylistic narrative is Gower, particularly in the "Visio Anglie" now incorporated into Book 1 of VC, which Carlson takes to be the only "preponderantly Ricardian piece still evident" in the much revised and edited longer work (398). The Visio "focuses on secular affairs . . . , at the national level even, in which diverse social groups had to take an interest, not excluding the clerical estates but not restricted to them. In it, Gower argues for an agenda for a particular programme of secular governance – albeit an appallingly narrow, reactionary one . . . – and Gower argues this agenda in largely if not exclusively secular terms" (398), employing the dream-vision form and writing in "unrhymed elegiac distichs – a complementary form of versification, unadorned, that lent the work stylistic accessibility" (399), that does not appear remarkable by classical standards but that stands out in sharp contrast to the practices of other contemporary writers of Latin verse. Gower abandoned his own experiment: his last major Latin work, the Cronica Tripertita, employs complex rhyme patterns "in addition to other stylistic features in common with the hyper-sophisticated scholastic Latin poetry" (401). But the simpler style lived on in the work of other poets who wrote on contemporary events, notably Richard Maidstone and the anonymous composer of the Lancastrian "Metrical Historia regum Angliae continuation." [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Carlson, David R Published Carlson, David R. "The Invention of the Anglo-Latin Public Poetry (circa 1367-1402) and its Prosody, esp. in John Gower." Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 39 (2004), pp. 389-406. ISSN 0076-9762 Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Vox Clamantis 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 The Invention of the Anglo-Latin Public Poetry (circa 1367-1402) and its Prosody, esp. in John Gower Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review In an earlier article (see JGN 21:5), Bratcher pointed out the similarity between Gower's tale of "The Three Questions" (CA 1.3067-3402) and the ballad of "King John and the Bishop" (Child, no. 45). For Gower's use of a young girl instead of a shepherd (as in the ballad) and for a closer analogue to the "dust-to-dust" theme of Gower's first riddle, Bratcher now cites Aarne-Thompson type 875, "The Clever Peasant Girl," particularly as reflected in a version collected near Hanover in the early nineteenth century. In a private correspondence, Bratcher points out that the reference to type 988 in his first footnote should instead be to type 922. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bratcher, James T. Published Bratcher, James T.. "Gower's 'Tale of Three Questions' and 'The Clever Peasant Girl' Folktale." Notes and Queries 53 (2006), pp. 409-410. 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 Gower's 'Tale of Three Questions' and 'The Clever Peasant Girl' Folktale. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006 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 "When texts make exemplary claims," Allen writes (p. 2), "they express an aspiration toward exact alignment among authorial purpose, narrative form, and audience response." Allen investigates the many possible disruptions of that alignment and the ways in which medieval authors such as Gower and Chaucer, through their consciousness of those disruptions, explore both the nature of fiction and the limits of exemplarity. Allen sets out the "contradictory strains" of what she calls the "exemplary mode" (declining to see it limited to a single genre) in her introduction, "Towards a Poetic of Exemplarity." Exemplary texts offer to teach a general moral truth based upon a particular event. They often attempt to control the interpretation of the event and its application through extra-narrative comment and through the comments of an "inscribed audience" made up of both the participants and spectators. But especially in the late medieval period, there is an increasing awareness of the historical contingency of all interpretation and therefore also of the role of the reading audience in creating meaning. There is also increasing awareness of the mediating effects of narration itself and of the paradox created by allowing affective response to shape if not to determine moral meaning. Concern over the inability to control the reader's response leads in some quarters to a Plato-like distrust of all representation. For others, of a more Aristotelian bent, the participation in the evaluation and the application of the particulars of a narrative – the very necessity of interpretation – implies that reading itself is a moral act and that "the very experience of exemplary discourse is itself a form of moral activity" (16). Consciousness of the problematic nature of the reader's role is reflected, in poems such as Chaucer's and Gower's, by the inclusion of a responding audience, whose interpretations are not just dependent upon their own circumstances but are also limited in comparison to those that the actual reading audience is invited to imagine; and consciousness of the role of formal structures in shaping moral meaning is reflected in the large number of Middle English exemplary texts that are "disjunctive, interrogative, ambiguous, or indeterminate. . . . Through aesthetic rather than simply directive methods, exemplary literature registers plural and unpredictable audiences. The literature itself raises questions of how its own contingent forms might constitute moral education and bring about social good" (23). Allen thus seeks to draw our attention back to "the profound medieval concern with the moral consequences of reading" (25). "Medieval exemplary literature," she writes (26), "does not simply demand obedience but inquires into its own social benefit, examines its own poetic indeterminacy, and argues for its audiences' moral freedom" (26). Gower provides the second of her major examples (pp. 53-82). She has less to say than one might expect from her introduction about the dialogue frame of the poem and about Amans' role as recipient of Genius' lessons. She does comment that, "Framed by the discussion of love between Amans and Genius, Venus's priest, the Confessio's examples are embedded in a courtly context that mediates their exemplary application to the public world invoked in the book's Prologue" (66-67). She thus implicitly defines the agenda of the poem as political, and more specifically as an attempt to mediate between private and public in a search for the meaning of the "common good." Gower conducts this search rhetorically, by way of copiousness, with all that that implies about the significance of each particular example and of the role of the reader in applying them to the general lesson: "The contingencies of various, and changing, political circumstances call into question the clarity of exemplary alignments among author, tale, and moral; kingship as constructed through exemplary discourse emerges as a continual, effortful process of imagining general unity. If examples make the singular common, they also indicate the degree to which, for Gower as for his classical predecessors, political virtue must be constantly reformulated rhetorically, in the re-presentation and reinterpretation of new exemplary instances" (67). In her discussion of this process, Allen naturally focuses on Book 7. She takes a fresh look at Gower's own discussion of rhetoric in 7.1507-1640, linking "plainness" to the illusion of a single, stable moral or political truth, "uninterrupted by figurative uses of language" (68), and Caesar's use of "colored" language, in his plea for mercy, with the "copious" procedure of CA itself, deriving a concept of political virtue from the multitude of contingent circumstances in which it must be exercised. In excluding the possibility of pity, "plainness," the rigid adherence to the law, is finally to be associated with tyranny, and proper governance is dependent not just upon eloquence and copiousness but upon fiction-making itself. Allen relies upon two principal examples for her argument, the tales of Lucrece and Virginia, and her rereading of the latter in comparison to its ultimate source in Livy provides some of the best evidence for her claims both about the design of CA and about the late medieval understanding of exempla. Genius describes the tale as a "wonder thing" (7.5134), moving it from the realm of history to that of fiction. He also dismisses each of the devices that Livy relies upon to defend Virginius' killing of his daughter as a defense of the Republic that Appius defiles. Instead, he describes Virginia's death as the result of an act of murderous rage, and "where Livy emphasizes the opposition between Virginius and Appius, Gower emphasizes their similarity. . . . Gower's Virginius, like Appius, acts according to an ungoverned will that overcomes his imaginative capacity for mercy toward his daughter" (77). Each is also guilty of a "literalizing interpretation of political fiction" (80), Appius of the analogy between ruler and ruled, Virginius of the analogy between the ordinary man and a king, and it is the latter that produces the more horrifying result as the father slays his daughter. "By shifting the tale away from the public realm in the direction of the familial, then, Gower calls attention to the unsteadiness of the relations between public and domestic tyrannies, and between public benefit and private desire. These relations emerge as necessarily metaphorical: it is the failure of both Appius and Virginius to recognize the metaphorical status of political fictions that generates their respective acts of cruelty. For Gower, the gap between individual desire and public policy must be mediated by the tools of fiction. Kingship, then, emerges as a process of reading political fictions, not only the theoretical fictions of the body politic, and the common profit, but also the narrative fictions of his own mirror for princes" (80). An earlier chapter treats The Book of the Knight of the Tower, arguing that the author's use of narrative implies a role for the reader in creating interpretation that is at odds with his desire to control his readers' education. Later chapters treat Chaucer's and Lydgate's versions of the tale of Virginia, the former destabilizing Virginia's exemplary value even more disturbingly than Gower, the latter responding to both of his predecessors in his own effort to "institute poetic order" (101); the "Interlude" attached to the post-Chaucerian "Tale of Beryn" as a response to "The Pardoner's Tale"; and Henryson's Testament of Cresseid as a response to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 26.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Allen, Elizabeth Published Allen, Elizabeth. "False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature." New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 ISBN 978-1403967978 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 False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Palgrave Macmillan, 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 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 This publication of a new biography of Chaucer by one of our foremost medievalists ought to be of major interest to Gower scholars as well. Pearsall's work will be compared most often to Donald Howard's (see JGN 7, no.1), which is often cited in his new biography, not always in disagreement. (John Gardner's biography is referred to only once, and dismissed as "licentiously fictional" [p.4].) Where Howard worked hard to establish connections between Chaucer's life and his writing, to the point of using Chaucer's writing as evidence of how he thought, Pearsall keeps the two sources of our knowledge about the poet distinct. He gives a careful weighing of the documentary evidence, and is generally impatient with speculations that cannot be supported by the record, while his discussion of Chaucer's major works is mostly critical in nature, and though necessarily brief, could be read profitably apart from the biographical context in which it is placed. He also creates a very different view of Chaucer's "personality" – somewhat less genial, less tolerant, even a little less wise and less sure of his own opinions than the received view of the poet, a more complex and more interesting reading of the "man," in part because it is less familiar and also therefore less predictable. As a result of his method, Pearsall ends up giving much less attention to Gower than Howard did. He cites, of course, the known facts: the grant to Gower of power of attorney in 1378, Chaucer's and Gower's mutual references in their poetry. But where Howard had a great deal to say about their attitudes and responses to one another, based mainly on the perceptible differences between their works, Pearsall is nearly silent on their personal and literary relationship, and offers no speculations on what their friendship might have meant for their respective poetic careers. He summarizes the evidence for their "quarrel," but concludes that "it may well be a fiction" (pp. 131-33); he notes the possibility that LGW and CA may have been begun in a spirit of "friendly competition" (pp. 195-96); and records the speculation that Chaucer might have borrowed his manuscript of Trivet's Anglo-Norman Cronicles from his friend (p. 242). Otherwise, his references to Gower, like those to Langland and the Gawain-poet, are generally comparative in nature, and are sometimes used to support assertions about Chaucer that cannot be documented directly. Gower's statement about his youthful composition of songs in French (MO 27340-41), for instance, is quoted in the discussion of how Chaucer's earliest writings were also probably in French (p. 64), though typically, the evidence that either composed for a Puy is labeled "not very convincing" (p, 316, n.7). And a bit more remarkably, Pearsall uses the vision in VC Book 1 as an expression of Chaucer's as well as Gower's attitudes towards rebellion, before proceeding to a discussion of the differences between the ways in which they embodied their views in their poetry (pp. 145-47). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Pearsall, Derek Published Pearsall, Derek. "The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography." Oxford: Blackwell, 1992 ISBN 1557862052 Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Biography of Gower Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Blackwell, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992 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 Fisher argues that the replacement of French by English in official circles in England in the early fifteenth century and the sudden appearance of large, elaborately prepared manuscripts of English poetry soon after 1400 are both linked to Henry IV's accession to the throne, and are the result of official Lancastrian policy to encourage the use of English as a means of gaining the support of Parliament and commons for Henry's usurpation. Chaucer is given a central position in his discussion, because of the large number of Chaucer manuscripts that were produced during this period, because of the recognition given to Chaucer soon after his death as the founder of English poetry, and because of Thomas Chaucer's importance in both Henry IV's and Henry V's court. Gower is given somewhat less prominence. Manuscripts of his works too are produced by some of the same scribes that produced Chaucer's during this important period. One manuscript of CA, moreover (Huntington Ellesmere 26.A.17, the "Fairfax" copy), provides evidence of Henry IV's interest in promoting the use of English even before he became king: Fisher uses the armorial insignia on its opening page to argue that it was prepared for presentation to Henry sometime between his return from France (at the end of June 1399), and his coronation (in the middle of October). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fisher, John H Published Fisher, John H. "A Language Policy for Lancastrian England." PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 107 (1992), pp. 1168-1180. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies 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 A Language Policy for Lancastrian England Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992 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 translation of Gower's Confessio exists in one manuscript, Escorial g-ii-19, rendered in the Castilian dialect, with some evidence of an Aragonese scribe. The only extant edition is rife with errors of language and transcription, and a rare book as well, thus making the need for a reliable and available scholarly text paramount. Many salient questions remain unanswered about the Castilian MS, including especially its date and origin. Not a holograph, the Escorial copy represents the work of at least two scribes. Their exemplar was an earlier Spanish MS (now lost), itself a translation by one Juan de Cuenca of the work of Robert Payn, an Englishman resident in Portugal who rendered Gower's English into Portuguese. Neither the date of the Escorial MS, nor that of the lost Portuguese translation of Payn, has been established with certainty. Moreno presents the various proposed dates and dismisses them, calling attention to two indications in the Escorial MS itself which seem to fix de Cuenca's works as occurring between 1433 and 1435. The first date is de Cuenca's naming himself, in the first paragraph of his translation, a citizen of the city ("cibdad") of Huete, a technical reference impossible before formal incorporation of Huete in 1428. The second is the translation of Gower's monetary "an hundred pounds" (CA V, 2719) as "six hundred coronas" ("seys cientas coronas"). This Moreno argues could only have come into the Escorial MS as a direct carry-over from the Portuguese, following the establishment of the exchange rate in 1433 by King Duarte of Portugal of reaes and coroas to the English pound in quantities equating a hundred pounds to 612.5 coroas – or "coronas", in Castilian. Hence on internal grounds, Moreno places the date of de Cuenca's version of the Confessio Amantis at 1433-1435. THIS articles also appears under the title "The Fifteenth-Century Portuguese and Castilian Translations of John Gower, 'Confessio Amantis'" in Manuscript 35 (1991): 23-34. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 13.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Santano Moreno, Bernardo Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Published 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/. 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 Article PeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource Some Observations on the Dates and Circumstances of the Fifteenth-Century Portuguese and Castilian Translations of John Gower's Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "Based on the premise that the early readers of the poem deserve the attention of their modern successors, this thesis presents for the first time a survey of the early ownership of the manuscripts of Gower's "Confessio Amantis," not suggesting that these owners and readers are necessarily one, but seeking to characterize the membership of the poet's possible audience from the text itself. By discussing in separate chapters the evidence of the provenance of the manuscripts containing excerpts of the poem (Chapter I), the documentary evidence for the history of the recorded copies which no longer survive (Chapter II), and, lastly, the evidence of the provenance of those manuscripts containing the complete text, or once containing such a text or a substantial portion of it (Chapter III), this study seeks to establish the differing readership profiles suggested by the three different forms of evidence and thus to make a general point about the interpretation, or rather, the misinterpretation and mishandling to which the evidence for the make-up of the audience(s)of the major Middle English poetic texts has been prone. The most significant findings of the research is the very clear evidence of the importance of Gower's poem to two groups widely separated in date; attention is drawn to the way in which the manuscripts repeatedly make it apparent that at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century, the poet's work had a special place for members of the House of Lancaster, and that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, fostered and promoted by the King's propaganda purposes, the Confessio occupied a similar place at the court of Henry VIII. The thesis acknowledges, but alo seeks to break the silence of, the evidence as a witness to the kinds of reading accorded to the Confessio by its medieval audience. Thus, where supporting evidence survives, it is always assembled to try to provide a social and literary or other intellectual context for the ownership of he poem by each member of Gower's possible medieval audience identified. Finally, in chapter IV, the concluding chapter, an account of readers' additions to the manuscripts is given from which discontinuous reading pattern are deduced, akin to the processes of reference and selection behind the creation of extracted versions of the poem." [JGN 13.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Harris, Kate Published Harris, Kate. ""Ownership and Readership: Studies in the Provenance of the Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis."." PhD thesis, University of York, 1993. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies 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 "Ownership and Readership: Studies in the Provenance of the Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Original title: Studien zu John Gower (1953). The Book is the only lengthy critical study of Gower's Latin; it attempts to set the Vox Clamantis against the background of his political and religious thinking, and show how formal aspects of the VC reappear in the Confessio Amantis. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Wickert, Maria Published Wickert, Maria. "Studies in John Gower." Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981 ISBN 081911992X Gower Subject 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 Studies in John Gower. Studien zu John Gower. 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 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 Argues that the Confessio is heavily influenced by Gower's legal training. He identifies five different meanings of "jus naturae" in the CA, and shows how they help to explain why many points in the poem seem difficult to modern readers. He goes on to argue that Gower transcends the rule of natural law for divine concern, through grace, by the poem's conclusion. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Olsson, Kurt Published Olsson, Kurt. "Natural Law and John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Medievalia et Humanistica 11 (1982), pp. 231-261. ISSN 0076-6127 Gower Subject 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 Natural Law and John Gower's Confessio Amantis. 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 Argues strongly for a reading of medieval poetry based on the notion of "array"--the outlined, divided, and subdivided parts making up many texts. He proposes a criticism based on "an analysis of outlines," or "an analysis of forma tractatus." Thus, the Confessio Amantis and the Vox Clamantis come in for brief mention, as evidence of versions of the array-making consciousness of the late 14th century. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Allen, Judson Boyce Published Allen, Judson Boyce. "The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages: A Decorum of Convenient Distinction." Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982 ISBN 0802023703 Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism 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 The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages: A Decorum of Convenient Distinction 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 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 Attempts to be a complete, annotated bibliography of all Goweriana exclusive of manuscripts and dissertations, except in particular cases; contains some errors and omissions. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R. F Published Yeager, R.F. "John Gower Materials: A Bibliography Through 1979." New York: Garland, 1981. ISBN 9780824093518 Gower Subject Bibliographies, Reports, and Reference Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 Materials: A Bibliography Through 1979. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Garland, 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 Argues the Confessio's Latin prose marginalia and verse headlinks are consciously used by Gower both to comment on and illuminate the English poetry. This mixture of language has some affinity with the Fasciculus Morum tradition, and may be used to clarify some of Gower's stylistic concerns. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "'our englisshe' and Everyone's Latin: the Fasciculus Morum and Gower's Confessio Amantis." South Atlantic Review 46 (1981), pp. 41-53. ISSN 0277-335X Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'our englisshe' and Everyone's Latin: the Fasciculus Morum and Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Points out that, for Gower in the Confessio Amantis, "to every thing there is a season": Amans' problem is not that he is old--for old age was not a stigma in the Middle Ages--but rather that he fails to act as his age requires. When he at last conforms to behavior proper to his senescence, the poem resolves itslef. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Mangan, Robert Published Mangan, Robert. "'Loves luste and lockes hore': Medieval Attitudes Towards Aging and Sexuality." Human Values and Aging Newsletter. 4 (1981), pp. 5-6. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Loves luste and lockes hore': Medieval Attitudes Towards Aging and Sexuality. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review The article opens with a reference to Phillippa of Lancaster, who took the Paynes with her from England to Portugal, and a description of the Payne coat of arms. Further information is to be found in a declaration made by King John III in 1535, concerning a petition by one Christovão Pinto de Paym, and it offers some details of the Payne line of descent: "Christovão was the legitimate son of Ruy Lopez Paym and grandson of Isabell Paym, legitimate daughter of Valentym Paym, noble of the household of King John I, who came to England with the Queen Felipa d'Alemcastro...." It is known that Tomalim Paym was acoompanied by his brother Roberto, a member of Queen Phillippa's household, according to a document dated 1402 which mentions Ruberte Paym. It was this man who translated John Gower's Confession Amantis into Portuguese, an undertaking already completed when King Edward was putting the finishing touches on his own composition, the Leal Conselhiero. In his prologue Edward states that he always names his source material, as John Gower has done in the CA, the Portuguese version of which figures in the list of the King's books under the title of "O Amante" (The Lover). This was his own, personal copy, not a borrowed one. Unfortunately, the Portuguese version made by Roberto Paym has disappeared, and we must make do with the Medieval Castilian version based on the Portuguese one. The Castilian CA is preceded by the following lines: "This book is called confession of the lover which was composed by Juan Goer native of the Kingdom of England. And it was rendered in the Portuguese language by Roberto Paim, native of the said Kingdom and canon of the city of Lisbon. And afterwards it was turned into the Castilian language by Juan de Cuenca neighbor of the city of Huete." How did the Portuguese version of this work fall into the hands of Juan de Cuenca? One explanation is that the Queen, Dona Leonor, or someone of her household, took the manuscript from King Edward's library to Spain. Naturally, the Queen, in conflict with her brother-in-law and co-Regent, Prince Pedro, had more important issues on her mind. But this was not necessarily true of some clergyman of her entourage, a Spaniard who was familiar with Portuguese, perhaps Juan de Cuenca himself. Roberto Paim took as his text for translation the first version, and there is no reason to believe that it contained any serious errors. The random selection of two extracts for comparison, those dealing with the legend of Alceone and Caix (Alceone and Ceix, in the Castilian), show that the translation is sure, neither too verbose, nor with any major omissions. Certain phrases and expressions do take on a particular Hispanic flavour, in the Castilian translation, however. For example, the oath "be seint Julien" becomes "by St. James" in the Castilian: "jurovos por Santiago." The remainder of the article is given over to background discussion of Gower's life, the versions of the CA, and the poem's various moral purposes: there is also a resume of the eight books of the CA. Singled out for special attention are the first ten chapters, where Gower paints a black picture of the religious and social situation in England and elsewhere; the allegorical framework of the CA and many of the legends and tales are recounted under the heading of one or the other of the Seven Capital Sins. [Pat Odber. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 2.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Martins, Mário, S. J Published Martins, Mário, S. J. "Dum Poema inglês de John Gower e da sua tradução do português para o castelhano." Didaskalia 9 (1979), pp. 413-432. ISSN 0253-1674 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 Dum Poema inglês de John Gower e da sua tradução do português para o castelhano. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979 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 Linda Barney Burke reports that she has found a copy of this rare study in the library at Columbia University, in a volume entitled John Gower Dissertations (catalog no. 822G74.Z8), bound together with Karl Eichinger's 1900 dissertation, also from Munich, "Die Trojasage als Stollquelle fur John Gowers Confession Amantis"). The book which she describes as "very fragile," may be the only copy in existence: the issuing university's copies were destroyed in the was, and apparently few were printed. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 2.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Strollreither, K Published Strollreither, K. "Quellennachweise zu Gowers Confessio Amantis." PhD thesis, Munich, 1901. 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 Quellennachweise zu Gowers Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1901 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 is a fairly detailed examination of Gower's adaptations of two tales from Book 3 of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Book 1 of the Confessio Amantis. Gower shortens and simplifies both tales, adapts them to the fourtenth century and to his moral instruction. Gower reduces violence, plays down change (metamorphosis), and tones down the divine nature of the characters. The study finds this typical of Gower's treatment of the twenty-eight tales he uses from Ovid's Metamorphosis. [Douglas J. Macmillan. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 2.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Cresswell, Julia Published Cresswell, Julia. "The Tales of Acteon and Narcissus in the Confession Amantis." Reading Medieval Studies 7 (1981), pp. 32-40. ISSN 0950-3129 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 The Tales of Acteon and Narcissus in the Confession Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Shows that Gower's inclusion of sorcery and witchcraft as aspects of gluttony in Book 6 of the Confessio Amantis is far from anomalous or mistaken, as it is often considered; rather, Gower was working within a tradition traceable to the gospels and throughout the penitential works derived from the Somme le Roi in which gluttony and witchcraft were linked as "sins of the mouth." [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 3.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "Aspects of Gluttony in Chaucer and Gower." Studies in Philology 81 (1984), pp. 42-55. 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 Aspects of Gluttony in Chaucer and Gower. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 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 translation of the Confessio Amantis into modern Japanese. It contains as well explanatory notes and a selected bibliography (notes in Japanese, bibliography in English) There are three plates: of MS Egerton 1991 f. 7v, of the outside of Southwark Cathedral, and of Gower's tomb.[PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 3.1]. Author/Editor Author/Editor Ito, Masayoshi, trans. Published Ito, Masayoshi, trans.. "Confessio Amantis." Tokyo: Shorin, 1983 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 Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Shorin, 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 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 Ito examines the story of Diogenes and Alexander from Book 3 (1202-1311) of the Confessio Amantis, identifying two separate story-lines combined within it: the "stand in my sun" episode and that of the "servant of my servant." For each of these sources are sought in various works, including Disciplina Claricalis, Gesta Romanorum, Speculum Historiale, and De Vita Moribus Philosophorum. Ito concludes that Gower's tale results from a combination of materials, the relationship of which is difficult to determine with present data and editions. Gower also added and emended much to produce his treatment. Ito argues that source studies carried on carefully can provide much information about how the poet's mind worked. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 3.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Ito, Masayoshi Published Ito, Masayoshi. "Gower's 'Diogenes and Alexander' and Its Philosophic-literary Tradition." Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic-Literary Studies 16 (1983), pp. 66-77. ISSN 0287-1629 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 Gower's 'Diogenes and Alexander' and Its Philosophic-literary Tradition. 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 Review Ito takes issue with the "too much stress" C. David Benson places on Gower's use of Guido delle Colonna in the Confession Amantis, and his consequent neglect of the Roman de Troie (see Benson's The History of Troy in Middle English Literature [Totowa, NJ, 1980]). Ito names passages which in his view are drawn from the Roman, and discusses thm for their contribution to the tone and structure of the CA. He adds a coda, in which he speculates as to which manuscript type Gower may have known of the Roman, conclusing that A2 is the most likely. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 3.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Masayoshi, Ito Published Masayoshi, Ito. "The Use of the Roman de Troie in the Confessio Amantis." In A Festschrift for Dr. Masuji Hasegawa on His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. UNSPECIFIED. Sendai: Kotoba no Kai, 1981, pp. 175-192. 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 The Use of the Roman de Troie in the Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kotoba no Kai, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Section PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Minnis succinctly puts his thesis thus: "Thirteenth-century schoolmen produced a critical vocabulary which enabled the literary features of Scriptural texts to be analsed thoroughly, and which encouraged the emergence in the fourteenth century of a more liberal attitude to classical poetry. Something of the new status which had been afforded to Scriptural poetry in particular and to the poetic and rhetorical modes employed throughout Scripture in general, seems to have 'rubbed off' on secular poetry" (p. 6). Minnis goes on to illustrate Gower's dependence on a literary theory propounded initially by Scriptural exegesis. He shows, first, how this theory helped to shape the Vox Clamantis (viewed as an example of prophetic writing in the 'forma prophetialis'), then discusses Gower's adaptation of the role of philosopher/teacher in the Confessio Amantis. In the CA, Amans/Gower and Gower the 'auctor' (which voice appears in the Latin marginalia) are used skillfully to place the theme of love firmly within an ethical context. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 3.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Minnis, A. J Published Minnis, A. J. "Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages." London: Scolar Press, 1984 ISBN 0859676412 Gower Subject 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 Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Scolar Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 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 Waen includes a brief comparison with Gower's Vox Clamantis and Cronica Tripertita: "Richard the Redeles shares with [Gower's works] a strong though less statuesque Lancastrianism; the fusion of the beast symbolism and literalism; and the attempt to protect the poem and the poet from official wrath . . . . Yet there are some significant differences between the works, suggesting that the association of Richard the Redeles with the Gowerian chronicle-tradition was not slavish and that it had within it the seeds of a different development within the truth-telling tradition. Compared with Gower's works, Richard the Redeles carries a less insistent burden of raw incident; its indignation is more analytic, less descriptive; it offers flickerings of undeveloped but developable allegory beyond the severe limitations of beast symbolism (notably in the sections relating to the King's household); it offers flickerings of undeveloped but equally developable themes (notably the dangers and the desireability of speaking the truth); lastly, unlike Gower's works, Richard the Redeles is unfinished." [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 3.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Wawn, Andrew Published Wawn, Andrew. "Truth-Telling and the Tradition of Mum and the Sothsegger." Yearbook of English Studies (1983), pp. 270-287. ISSN 0306-2473 Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Cronica Tripertita 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 Truth-Telling and the Tradition of Mum and the Sothsegger. 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 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 Review A general introduction to the subject of the tradition of the romance of Apollonius. Father Martins traces the progress of this romance through the Middle Ages, mentioning the 11th-century adaptation (in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica), Godfrey of Viterbo's more poetic version in the Pantheon, the inclusion of the Book of Apollonius in the Gesta Romanorum, and its appearance in Castilian in the 13th and 14th centuries. [Pat Oder. JGN 3.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Martins, Mário, S. J Published Martins, Mário, S. J. "Como 'Apolónio de Tiro' chegou até nós através de John Gower." In Estudos de Cultura Medieval. Ed. UNSPECIFIED. Lisbon: Ediçoes Brotéria, 1983, pp. 133-144. 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 Como 'Apolónio de Tiro' chegou até nós através de John Gower. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Ediçoes Brotéria, 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 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 Review Since the Confessio Amantis was still unwritten when Chaucer completed his Troilus and Criseyde, the "moral Gower" mentioned in the closing stanzas could only have been known by his earlier (and entirely didactic) works in French and Latin. An examination of the opening lines of these poems shows that they too address some of the ideas about the use of pagan (classical) imagery so troublesome to Chaucer, and also preach an uncompromising unworldliness resembling Troilus's rejection of "lust" from the eighth sphere. In dedicating his poem to Gower, then, Chaucer knew what he was doing--a point driven home further by the absence of the word "moral" in English prior to this context. The term fits a Senecan Gower perfectly--the public persona he had established for himself by the early 1380's--and so helps us see the closing lines of Troilus as serious matter. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. ""O Moral Gower": Chaucer's Dedication of Troilus and Criseyde." Chaucer Review 19 (1984), pp. 87-99. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject 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 "O Moral Gower": Chaucer's Dedication of Troilus and Criseyde. 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 1984 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Although Gower speaks of it, both he and Chaucer in fact practice the "middel weie" of writing; but, while Chaucer seems to adopt a center style because he "meanders" between extremes, Gower has his sights firmly on his goal, and claims the plain style and subject-matter purposefully. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Shaw, Judith Davis Published Shaw, Judith Davis. "Lust and Lore in Gower and Chaucer." Chaucer Review 19 (1984), pp. 110-122. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lust and Lore in Gower and Chaucer. 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 1984 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 three groups into which Macauley divided the manuscripts of the first recension do not represent three stages of the author's revision but scribal corruption instead, and the version that Mcauley considered fully revised was actually Gower's original. This conclusion has a number of consequences for the study of the poem. Since MS B, which contains the Ricardian dedication but the revised conclusion, draws its opening from a late and corrupt (rather than an early, "unrevised") manuscript of recension one, B is not derived from an author's working copy in the midst of revision, as Macauley believed, but is instead an editorial composite, combining separate manuscript traditions into a single continuous text. Macauley's beliefs about the order of composition of "recension two" an "recension three" are therefore brought into question. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Nicholson, Peter Published Nicholson, Peter. "Gower's Revisions in the Confessio Amantis." Chaucer Review 19 (1984), pp. 123-143. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower's Revisions in the Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Penn State University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 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 Two penitential manuals, Handlyng Synne and Myrc's Instructions for Parish Priests are compared to CA in order "to point out the extensive use of penitential material in the poem--too extensive to be ignored." A didactic reading of the poem permits many of the 'digressions' (like Book VII and the extensive courtly elements) to be seen as parts of a consistent whole, the purpose of which is to show that "proper Christian behavior leads to a reasoned, ordered universe." [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Kinneavy, Gerald Published Kinneavy, Gerald. "Gower's Confessio Amantis and the Penitentials." Chaucer Review 19 (1984), pp. 144-161. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower's Confessio Amantis and the Penitentials. 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 1984 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 Chaucer's Man of Law correctly reads Gower's intent in treating incest, that is, as sin unmitigated by "lawe of kinde." The story of Canace and Machaire, often cited as evidence of Gower's acceptance of natural responses when followed in innocence, is better understood as "the essential image" of the "wild aberration of sexual love." Since Chaucer never offers us characters who finally abandon themselves in passion, Gower's courage exceeds his friend's here; yet because of his willingness to portray passion directly, Gower "seems unable to provide any practical penitential 'remedy' for those enslaved by such sins." As a result, CA is a flawed penitential effort, although "a more complex literary achievement than we might expect from 'moral' Gower. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Benson, C. David Published Benson, C. David. "Incest and Moral Poetry in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Chaucer Review 19 (1984), pp. 100-109. ISSN 0009-2002 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 Incest and Moral Poetry in Gower's Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Penn State University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Discusses Gower on pages 114-32. Following the theorist Viktor Shklovsky, we can identify two categories of story collections in the fourteenth century. The first of these, "based on a narrative device with some motivation, for example that of delay or dispute, which has a definite purpose," describes the Confessio Amantis as well as, among other works, the Seven Sages of Rome. Gower, "one of the greatest intellectuals of his time," develops the poem around the frame systematically, with "ethical, scientific and narrative motives" in mind. The chapter concludes with an assessment of Gower's successful narratives techniques. The study is generally concerned with types of medieval narrative--religious, comic, romance, dream-visions, story collections--and Chaucer's mastery of these.[PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2 and 1.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Boitani, Piero Published Boitani, Piero. "English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982 ISBN 0521235626 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 English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Cambridge University Press, 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 Discusses the manuscript tradition of Gower's English poems, and selects the Fairfax and Stafford MSS of the Confessio Amantis for a fresh examination of the dialect. The results of this examination show that Gower's language combined features of two entirely separate regional dialects, which can each be pinpointed, one in a narrowly delimited area of N. W. Suffolk. This result is then found to tally exactly with external historical evidence concerning the Gower family. The article concludes with a brief discussion of some of the implications the evidence of Gower's mixed dialect has for our understanding of late 14th-century speech patterns in and around London. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 4.2] This socio-linguistic study, based ona new language analysis of readings in the Fairfax and Stratford MSS., discusses the relationships of the MSS. of the Confessio Amantis and In Praise of Peace an concludes it is questionable that Gower's English is that of the court at London or that of Chaucer. Linguistic features isolated here suggest two distinct authorial dialectical strata: N.W. Kentish and S.W. East Anglian (localized in the triangle in S.W. Suffolk bounded by Bury St. Edmunds, Clare, and Lavenham). The study thus suggests the linguistic hypothesis of two separate regional influences in Gower's upbringing. The hypothesis is confirmed by the external fact that Gower's family owned land at Kentwall (within the noted triangle) and at Otford in N.W. Kent. Included are three MS, stemmata and a dialectical map. [Douglas J. McMillan. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 2.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Samuels, M.L Smith, J.J Published Samuels, M.L and Smith, J.J. "The Language of Gower." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 82 (1981), pp. 295-304. ISSN 0028-3754 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Biography of Gower Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Language of Gower. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Braswell's concern is the penitential tradition in history, theology, and literature. In chapter 3, she points out that Gower "selected as a framework the confessional itself, based the character of Genius on that of the model confessor, and put Amans in the position of the 'the learner' (the penitent)." Braswell then investigates Gower's use of penitential manuals, to show how the structure and content of these manuals influenced the structure of his work. Much of the dialogue between Genius and Amans parallels the questions and answers found in mid-fourteenth century penitential namuals. [PN. Copyright the John Gower Society. JGN 5.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Braswell, Mary Flowers Published Braswell, Mary Flowers. "The Medieval Sinner: Characterization and Confession in the Literature of the English Middle Ages." London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1983 ISBN 0838631177 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 The Medieval Sinner: Characterization and Confession in the Literature of the English Middle Ages. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Associated University Presses, 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 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 Chapter 1 surveys some approaches used to analyse the effect of illustrations on a reader, among them Alain-Marie Bassy's distinction between textual "relay" and textual "anchorage." Chapter 2 analyses certain Middle English prefatory pictures which operate like Bassy's "relay;" these pictures bring familar iconographic motifs to bear upon the authorial persona the literary work presents. Depicting either the Lover's Confession or Nebuchadnezzar's Statue, the prefatory miniatures in manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis help characterize the works protagonists and help confirm the poet's own role as a prophet who warns the king that the final age of history has come. Chapter 3 shows that the illustrations in MS New College 266 typically highlight moments of moral conversion and self-recognition from the exempla. Chapter 4 shows that the illustrations in MS Morgan M.126 typically emphasize scenes from the exempla that reflect the political and moral discord of the present age described by Gower in the Prologue. An appendix contains iconographic descripions and reproductions of the miniatures used in the study. [JGN 5.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Braeger, Peter C. Published Braeger, Peter C.. "The Interrelationships of Text and Illustration in Some Middle English Literary Manuscripts." PhD thesis, Purdue University, 1986. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Interrelationships of Text and Illustration in Some Middle English Literary Manuscripts. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Chapter 1 summarises the present state of knowledge of the history of Middle English and sets forth current theories for analysing scribal practice. Chapter 2 reconstructs the language of the poet through an examination of the manuscript evidence, and presents a study of Gower's rhyming practice. Chapter 3 is a preliminary linguistic survey of all accessible manuscripts and early prints of the Confession Amantis, with the exception of those studies in detail in chapters 2 and 4. Chapter 4 is a study of the manuscripts copied by "Scribe D." Chapter 5 presents conclusions, important among which are that (a) MSS Fairfax and Stafford "are, in all respects except their actual handwriting, as good as autograph copies;" (b) Gower's own language "was transmitted through layers of scribal copying throughout the fifteenth century in a very remarkable way;" (c) a corpus of spellings for the entire available manuscript tradition of the Confessio is presented; (d) new evidence about the career of Scribe D is offered. There are a bibliography and two appendices, one in which data used in the text are presented, and one of maps, showing dialectical regions. [JGN 5.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Smith, Jeremy J Published Smith, Jeremy J. "Studies in the Language of Some Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis." PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 1985. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Studies in the Language of Some Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 According to the traditional view, Gower's attempt to link "lust" and "lore" in CA was misguided, and his work is essentially disunified as a result. According to more recent views, the treatment of love is of a piece with the ethical concerns of the poem; in Minnis' words (1983:1), "For Gower, the virtues of the good lover were indistinguishable from those of the good man." White rejects both positions, and argues that the apparent disunity of the poem reflects the poet's own concern with "division." The theme of division occurs repeatedly in CA, both as a social and as a psychological phenomenon. In both the Prologue and Book 7 man himself is described as divided between conflicting powers. The conflict "is not presented as irresolvable, but . . . a final resolution can only be achieved through the complete removal of one of the warring parties. And there is a clear awareness that such a resolution is not often achieved. . . . It is a pattern which concedes the dominance of failure" (p. 603). One of the recurring oppositions in the poem is that between Nature and Reason, which Gower depicts as "a reflex of the fundamental division between the body and the soul" (p. 604). Despite instances in which nature and reason are apparently reconciled, Gower is not optimistic about the likelihood, especially in matters of love. Genius too is "a figure divided against himself" (p. 607), attempting to serve incompatible aims: thus his own statement on the difficulty of treating love and morality together. The awkwardness is confronted repeatedly during his discourses, especially when his service to Venus leads him to contradict orthodox morality, and at the end of the poem, he abandons the attempt to reconcile love and reason and chooses reason alone. Even Venus and Nature, in Gower's portrayal, partake of the same division; and the attempt to accommodate "kinde" to Reason only leads to conflicting statements on "kinde" itself. Having abandoned the style of his earlier works at the beginning of Book 1, Gower is sent back to these works at the conclusion of Book 8 as he turns from human love to charity. CA is thus "permeated with a sense of failure" (p. 615), reflecting Gower's pessimism about the insuperability of fundamental divisions in our nature and about the impossibility of both enjoying the world and also keeping an eye focused on heaven. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor White, Hugh Published White, Hugh. "Division and Failure in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Neophilologus 72 (1988), pp. 600-616. ISSN 0028-2677 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 Division and Failure in Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988 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 Simpson explores the discrepancies and contradictions created by the juxtaposition of differing traditions in the Prologue and Book 1 of CA, partly in answer to those who see the unity of the poem in Gower's subordination of his presentation of love to the ethical scheme within which it is framed. The opening of Book 1 presents love as an irresistible force and denies the possibility of its control by reason, directly contrary to the sentiments of the Prologue, which denounces men who blame external influences for their own suffering. Such an attitude towards love cannot be a sub-branch of the ethical wisdom of the Prologue, as A.J. Minnis claims: indeed one of the works that Minnis cites for his notion of the "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" prologues helps clarify the distinction between philosophical wisdom and the blind appetites that are the subject of Book 1. Gower's reference to his change of "Stile" (1.8) is also significant, for it alludes to the distinction between the satiric mode of the Prologue (in the manner of Juvenal) and the poetry of delight alone (the manner of Ovid) to which satiric verse was traditionally hostile. Genius himself partakes of a similar "juxtaposition of traditions," and is too ambivalent in nature to resume the moral authority of the Prologue. The tales he tells (Simpson limits himself to Book 1) leave doubt concerning his moral authority on the central question of reason's control of love. A different kind of instability is created by the tendency of the tales to break the bounds set by the opening of Book 1 and to repeatedly invoke the political concerns of the Prologue. The effect is to remind the reader that, despite Genius' fumbling and despite the artificial separation created by the narrator, one cannot treat either politics or sexual control without reference to the other. Gower is very much a poet rather than a philosopher; his wish for a new Arion is closely related to his purpose with CA, but he works within the ironic traditions of Jean de Meun and Chaucer rather than as a compiler of philosophical lore. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Simpson, James Published Simpson, James. "Ironic Incongruence in the Prologue and Book I of Gower's Confessio Amantis." Neophilologus 72 (1988), pp. 617-632. ISSN 0028-2677 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 Ironic Incongruence in the Prologue and Book I of Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988 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 According to Mitchell, Confessio Amantis is one of the many works of medieval literature with which Scott was familiar, but Scott's attitude towards the poem was evidently typical of his time. "He read it, certainly, but except for the Tale of Florent and some lines from Book VI referring to the Tristan-story [6.467-75?] (which he quotes in the note to II.1 of Sir Tristrem [the ME version, which he edited in 1804]), it made little impression on him; on the whole he found in 'dull'" (p. 37; the source for the last quotation is not specified). Scott edited the works of Dryden in 1808; and in his headnote to Dryden's translation of the "Wife of Bath's Tale" he cited both "Florent" and The Marriage of Sir Gawaine: "What was a mere legendary tale of wonder in the rhyme of the minstrel, and a vehicle for trite morality in that of Gower, in the verse of Chaucer reminds us of the resurrection of a skeleton, reinvested by miracle with flesh, complexion, and powers of life and motion" (p. 36). Interestingly enough, Scott does not appear on any of the available lists of Gower allusions and commentary. The bibliography is not large, and the example of Scott suggests that there are still other references to be identified. See Macaulay, Complete Works, II, viii-ix; Heinrich Spies, "Bisherige Ergebnisse und weitere Aufgaben der Gower-Forschung," Englische Studien, 28 (1900): 163-74, 207?8; Spies, "Goweriana, 1. Weitere Hinweise auf John Gower in der englischen Literatur," Englische Studien, 34 (1904): 169-75; Spies, rev. of Macaulay, Complete Works, IV, Englische Studien, 35 (1905): 105-06 and n.; Fisher, John Gower (1964), pp. 1-36; N.W. Gilroy-Scott, "John Gower's Reputation: Literary Allusions from the early fifteenth century to the time of 'Pericles'," YES, 1 (1971): 30-47; and Derek Pearsall, "The Gower Tradition," in Gower's Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments (1983), pp. 184-94.] [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Mitchell, Jerome Published Mitchell, Jerome. "Scott, Chaucer, and Medieval Romance: A Study in Sir Walter Scott's Indebtedness to the Literature of the Middle Ages." Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987 ISBN 0813116090 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 Scott, Chaucer, and Medieval Romance: A Study in Sir Walter Scott's Indebtedness to the Literature of the Middle Ages. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available University Press of Kentucky, 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 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 Lee makes a multi-pronged attempt to redeem Chaucer's Physician's Tale from the unfavorable judgment of earlier criticism, and uses the comparison to Gower's tale of Virginia to bolster his case (pp. 144-46). Gower reveals by contrast some of the most outstanding qualities of Chaucer's version. Gower maintains the "overtly political purpose" of the tale, while Chaucer transforms "a pagan political anecdote into a Christian moral exemplum." Chaucer emphasizes the pathos of the situation; Gower eschews pathos and any attention to character, "and so does not rise above the anecdotal level." The comparison also reveals some of the strengths of Chaucer's retelling: he provides a more credible motivation to the villainous judge and demonstrates his contempt for justice more vividly; he portrays Virginia's virtue singlemindedly, and strengthens the narrative by omitting reference to her betrothal; and he effectively invokes pity in the conclusion, a quality explicitly excluded by Gower, who attributes Virginius' action to his irrational despair. Lee's essay also contains an interesting discussion of the "moral logic" of Chaucer's version and ts relation to FrankT and PardT, which precede and follow. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Lee, Brian S. Published Lee, Brian S.. "The Position and Purpose of the Physician's Tale." Chaucer Review 22 (1987), pp. 141-160. ISSN 0009-2002 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Position and Purpose of the Physician's Tale. 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 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 The verbal parallel between Legend of Good Women Prologue F464-65, "For-why a trewe man, withouten drede, / Hath nat to parten with a theves dede," and VC 5.314, "Improba nec iustos scandala furis habent," and the similarity in general context suggest that Chaucer borrowed the phrase from Gower. The borrowing provides confirmation of Chaucer's knowledge of VC, and strengthens the case that the discussion of love and chivalry in VC 5 influenced the moral bearing of Troilus and Criseyde.] [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Juby, W.H. Published Juby, W.H.. "A Theves Dede: A Case of Chaucer's Borrowing from Gower." ANQ: American Notes and Queries 1 (1988), pp. 123-125. ISSN 0003-0171 Gower Subject Vox Clamantis 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 A Theves Dede: A Case of Chaucer's Borrowing from Gower. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988 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 retelling the story of Paris' judgment, Gower may have adopted the common medieval allegorization in which Juno represents the Active Life, Venus the Passionate Life, and Minerva the Contemplative Life. In siezing Helen in the temple, Paris is both an unwise political leader, victimizing the innocent, and also an erring human who has chosen the passionate way over the contemplative. Gower redefines Helen's role in their relationship in order to shift all blame to Paris. Though she falls in love with Paris at their first encounter, her part in their dialogue together is reduced, and she has evidently overcome her passion and has turned from Paris to God before she is abducted. Thus unlike the "symbol of destructive sexuality" in Homer, Gower's Helen is "a model of morality and of proper Christian behavior," and as she prays in the temple she may be intended as an image of the contemplative way of life that Paris rejects.] [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Gittes, Katherine S. Published Gittes, Katherine S.. "Gower's Helen of Troy and the Contemplative Way of Life." ELH 27 (1989), pp. 19-24. ISSN 0013-8304 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 Gower's Helen of Troy and the Contemplative Way of Life. 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 The "perfect age," according to Dove, is that vaguely defined period of middle age, which for medieval writers was a time of neither uncertainty nor mere transition but the prime of life, the period of gravitas as opposed to both iuventus and senectus. The first two parts of this book offer a survey of the imagery of the "perfect age" in medieval literature, drawing examples from earlier and later texts as well. In the last part, Dove discusses how the major poets of the Ricardian period invoke the conventional motif only to question it, and explore the individual's experience of living through the stages of his life rather than imposing an inherited pre?existing pattern. "The ageing process itself," she writes, "is one of Ricardian poetry's most characteristic matieres. For Gower, in Confessio Amantis, it is the most exciting avanture of all" (p. 126). In her short chapter on Gower (pp. 125?33) Dove analyzes the stages of Amans' growth into realization and Gower's use of first? and third?person narration in his account. Along the way, she takes issue with both Burrow's and Lewis' emphasis on Amans' discovery of the limitations of his old age. Like Langland's Dreamer, Amans crosses directly from iuventus to senectus, but unlike Langland, "Gower represents the threshold between the two ages as a place where consciousness of self begins" (p. 130). With "consciousness of self" comes reincorporation into the "created world" and a release from the bonds of age?decorum. At the same time, Gower "re?defines the series of the ages. Senectus as grief and loss and nakedness is experienced only during the time of transition from one age to the next, in a swoon. The age which comes after myhty youthe is an age of rest and ease and peace, an age which anticipates a calm, unadventurous transition to the eighth age of the world, the age which is, as Ambrose says, 'una et perpetua'--not a stage but a lasting state" (p. 132)--in other words, the "perfect age."] [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Dove, Mary Published Dove, Mary. "The Perfect Age of Man's Life." Cambridge: Cambridge Uuiversity Press, 1986 ISBN 0521325714 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 The Perfect Age of Man's Life. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Cambridge Uuiversity Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Gower gets a brief discussion (pp. 89-90) in this survey of nearly 200 examples (short and long) of "framing fictions" in Middle English. CA is listed with other "dream-vision analogues," poems which contain the structural features of dream visions but in which no "break in consciousness" occurs. The preliminaries in Book 1 of CA constitute an "adventure motif" that is conventional in such poems, but unlike the shorter examples, the "framing fiction" is not clearly marked off from the "core" of Amans' dialogue with Genius. Gower's manipulation of convention is also evident in his use of the "framing fiction" in the third-person tale of Rosiphelee. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 9.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Davidoff, Judith M. Published Davidoff, Judith M.. "Beginning Well: Framing Fictions in Late Middle English Poetry." Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988 ISBN 0838632084 Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Beginning Well: Framing Fictions in Late Middle English Poetry. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988 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 Robins offers an ambitious argument grounded in contemporary theoretical models to account for the nature and purpose of the frequently remarked diversity of voices and of types of narrative in CA. He works from the inside out, starting with "Apollonius of Tyre." Gower's setting of the romance within a moralized frame invokes "dramatically opposed strategies of reading" (p. 158), one represented throughout the poem by Amans and the other by Genius. Romance, he claims (citing Bakhtin) is the mode of random narrative contingency, and of unseen external forces as opposed to individual agency; but Genius, in his focus on the conclusion of the tale, invokes an opposing "temporality of moral necessity" (here Robins cites Ricoeur) according to which "internal moral disposition will determine the outcome of external events" (p. 161). Amans believes he lives in the first mode, subject to the arbitrary whims of his lady, while Genius unsuccessfully attempts to resee his life in exemplary and moral terms. Genius' very attempt is paradoxical, for exemplary instruction is itself an "external force," the efficacy of which depends upon a pre-existing internal disposition. This "paradox of exemplarity" is illustrated in Amans' assertion that the lesson of "Apollonius" does not apply to him. Throughout the poem he repeatedly rejects the analogical reasoning of the exempla, and Genius is unable to overcome his objection. This "interrogation of the grounds of exemplarity" is the "theorem" of the poem (p. 165), and Gower pursues his exploration by opposing different kinds of tales and different ways of reading. A precedent for his procedure can be found in the Nicomachean Ethics, which invokes "competing patterns of how behavior might be understood," by "internal ordering of the soul" or by the "external gifts of Fortune" (p. 167). Gower deals with this philosophical issue in literary terms, by experimenting with different kinds of narrative, culminating in "Apollonius of Tyre." This tale also contains in its recognition scene a model for the conclusion of CA. As Thaise attempts to reason with her father, external promptings fail, but the internal predisposition that stems from their natural blood relationship works to bring about Apollonius' transformation. The scene keeps the dynamic between external and internal in clear focus, but Robins rejects Olsson's recent argument on the efficacy both of Thaise's words and of Genius' teaching. This last exemplum is ineffectual for Amans, who is brought to his senses only by the forced recognition of his old age. At this point Amans does move from one model of self-definition to another, from the external evaluation (his lack of success) to the internal (he is no longer capable of being "amans"). But it is not a simple matter of choosing one narrative mode over the other. Amans is caught between the two, neither of which is adequate to his case, and in casting off the "romance" view, he does not commit himself to the "exemplary," for it is "unresponsive to lived experience" (p. 175). He is thus "finally positioned as a subject who has to adjudicate between the competing narrative modes that constitute his ability to think about himself" (ibid.). The reader, Robins argues, is put in the same position as Amans, beginning with the Prologue of the poem, which in its invocation of exemplum, chronicle, and complaint, serves "to bring the readers to an admission that their own predicament of making sense of the world is bound up in competing narrative understandings of temporality" (p. 177). The subject-position that is created for the reader is "not equivalent to a romantic notion of a fully autonomous interior self, for reflection is seen as participation in discursive modes shared by society and preceding the individual. And yet this situation differs from the postmodern, decentered subject for which the self is an illusion created by language, for Gower dearly holds to the belief in an interiority from which to choose between, or at least to feel and endure, competing narrative options. The ground upon which to order one's thoughts, desires, and actions, is constituted rather by an activity of first-person enunciation" (p. 178). At the end of the poem, Amans/Gower resumes both his proper name and his personal history as a writer. "Able now to review and give shape to the experience of having read his own life through and against available narrative patterns, the character/narrator recognizes that he occupies an individual position of ethical responsiveness, and his readers are spurred to realize that they too can articulate their course of engagement with various models of self-conception" (ibid.). In conclusion, Robins asserts, "Gower is not primarily concerned to represent the subjectivity of a character, but rather to provoke the subjectivity of the reader, to create the conditions whereby a reader can come to understand the site he or she occupies at the intersection of incommensurable modes of narrative self-conception. The "Tale of Apollonius," bearing the pattern of ancient romance into the fourteenth-century culture of exemplarity, becomes one of the told Gower strategically manipulates for implementing that purpose, a purpose which, however, can only be a gambit for Gower, for he knows that he cannot guarantee the success of his strategy of provocation no matter how earnestly he wishes to secure it" (pp. 180-81). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Robins, William Published Robins, William. "Romance, Exemplum, and the Subject of the Confessio Amantis." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997), pp. 157-181. 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 Romance, Exemplum, and the Subject of the Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 is a scholarly book of a sort that we don't see very often anymore: broadly researched, thoroughly documented, nearly encyclopedic in its coverage, and without any particular theoretical disposition. Dean offers his work as a contribution to the history of ideas, and as a token of his thoroughness, in his introductory chapter, in addition to summarizing and commenting on earlier studies of the "world grown old" in medieval literature, he also offers a discussion of the difference between "idea" and a trope or topos (citing both Boas and Curtius); and indeed it is part of his argument that the "world grown old" is an "idea" rather than merely a rhetorical commonplace: that it encompassed a variety of different but related subtopics, and that in its breadth it provided the "organizing principle" for major works of later medieval literature. Dean's interest is in these works rather than simply in the growth and development of the "idea," and in that respect he distinguishes his own study from more traditional scholarship in the "history of ideas." While acknowledging the importance of recognizing conventions for what they are, he focuses on the ways in which individual authors apply and respond to the "ideas" that they use, including the ways in which different ideas co-existing in the same work are brought into relation with one another. Thus, after a very useful "Morphology of Subtopics," including the "ages of the world," the "world upside-down," "the ancient-versus-modern controversy (giants and dwarves)," and a number of others in his second chapter, the bulk of his book is given over to close study of five major medieval authors: Jean de Meun, Dante, Langland, Gower, and Chaucer. The Gower chapter is entitled "Social Deterioration and the Decline of Love in John Gower's Narratives," by which he means Gower's three major poems, MO, VC, and CA. In each, the poet "chronicles the sorry state of things and laments the world's decline from former, better eras" (p. 233), using the de senectute mundi theme as his structuring principle. In his separate consideration of each of these three works, Dean naturally focuses on those portions in which the de senectute mundi theme occurs. In MO, that would be the social anatomy in lines 18421-27360 in which each estate is criticized in turn for failing to live up to the model of virtue of their predecessors, often by means of the rhetorical construction "jadis . . . mais ore." In VC as well, "Gower portrays a deteriorating society and a world turned upside down" (p. 243). Book 1--the visio of the Peasants' Revolt--repeats the characterization of the peasantry in contemporary chronicles, and is a virtually unique instance in Ricardian poetry of an extended response to a particular contemporary historical event. Gower's treatment contains echoes of Langland, of Ovid, and of scripture. In the remaining books, he "anatomizes society as in decay" (p. 247), using familiar "world grown old" motifs. "These and other laments de senectute mundi are thoroughly conventional and yet given a new context by the account of the Peasants' Revolt and Gower's insistence throughout the Vox that there are modern applications to the ancient tropes. Throughout his narrative writings Gower implies that modern men and women live their lives according to archetypal scripts, ways of behaving and speaking instanced in ancient scriptural and classical texts and reenacted in modern conduct" (p. 248). The most pronounced image of the "world grown old" is the statue from Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the Book of Daniel, another instance of applying an old symbol to modern times, anticipating the appearance of the same image in CA. Also anticipatory of CA in the Cronica Tripertita, in which Richard is blamed for a lack of love. As in MO and VC, Gower finds the "chief example and root cause" of the declining world in "individual malfeasance" (p. 250). In CA, the individual's responsibility for the decline of the world in embodied in the poet/Amans, who is also old. As in Gower's earlier works, the central idea of CA is the "world grown old," particularly the decline of love; in this work, however, both the macrocosm and the microcosm have decayed. The Prologue to CA, repeating themes from MO and VC, reflects "Gower's persistent, strong concern for moral and terrestrial decline and particularly for the individual's responsibility in the decay" (p. 252). Gower repeatedly echoes the "jadis . . . mais ore" formula from MO, and also introduces again the statue from Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Dean emphasizes Gower's departures from the Biblical version of the dream, particularly in Gower's hope, represented in the overthrow of the statue, for an apocalyptic renewal of the world rather than merely a messianic kingdom. The statue is effective because it portrays the decline of the world in a specifically human image, which is emblematic for Gower of mankind's "original and continuing culpability for the world's 'health'" (p. 261). The focus on human sin prepares the way for the story of Amans, who, as an "example of improper loving" (p. 264), discovers his own responsibility for the decline of love in the world. While his age is not explicit at the beginning of the poem, he is described as having suffered his love-sickness for a long time, so that the discovery of his age at the end is not a shock but a recognition. The poet's incorporation of his own literal infirmities into the conclusion has an element of wit, but his age and his sickness both have "metaphoric overtones" (p. 267). "If the great world has grown old through division, improper loving, and a cooling of charity, so has Gower" (p. 268). He is both St. Paul's vetus homo and an image of the world at large, and as he shuffles off to seek dignity in penance, "he makes himself the butt of the joke and humbly acknowledges his complicity in the decay of society" (p. 270). This summary reveals both the strengths and the limitations of Dean's study. It is certainly useful to see the ways in which Gower draws upon and alters motifs and ideas that were current in his time, and to examine the connections among his three works. But the effort to do so can itself result in a very partial view, especially for a poem like CA. While such a study may indeed be adequate for MO and VC, fully half of Dean's discussion of CA is concerned with the Prologue, and most of the rest treats the final scene in which Amans is compelled to acknowledge his old age. Virtually everything else that occurs in between is summarized with the observation that "The exemplary stories themselves may owe more to 'lust' than 'lore," more to mirth than morality; but often Genius finds ways to link the stories and their applications with moral pronouncements de senectute mundi" (p. 266). He actually does so fairly rarely, and only in the "digressions," not in the tales. It would in fact be quite hard to demonstrate from the stories in CA that Gower saw the ancient past as in any way more virtuous than the present. Earlier, Dean declares "Although Gower scholars have questioned the appropriateness of individual tales within the books as illustrations of particular sins, Gower's moral, didactic intentions are clear enough" (p. 252). Elided here is virtually all of the recent discussions of the poem that would make of it something much more complicated and more sophisticated than the straightforward didactic work that Dean describes. And viewing the ending simply in terms of Amans' age allows no consideration of any of his specific lessons during the course of the confession or of the multiple inflections that have been given to both "Nature" and "Reason." Dean would take us back to Fisher's view of Gower's three major works as coherent in purpose if not indeed as three parts of the same composition. His method of argument also often resembles Fisher's, picking out only the passages in the poem that conform to his thesis with the implication that they constitute the whole. What Dean has provided is a valuable index to a central idea and to its associated motifs, which deserves to be incorporated into a more complete understanding of the complexities of a very complex poem. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Dean, James M. Published Dean, James M.. "The World Grown Old in Later Medieval Literature." Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1997 ISBN 0915651041 Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Cronica Tripertita Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The World Grown Old in Later Medieval Literature. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Medieval Academy of America, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book 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 Despite their obvious similarities, the vision of the Peasants' Revolt in Book 1 of VC and Chaucer's NPT "have never been compared systematically," Astell claims (p. 53), and she sets out to remedy the deficiency: Gower's dream of domestic animals acting like wild beasts becomes Chaucer's tale of a domestic animal who has a dream of a wild beast; Gower's introductory remarks on the truth of dreams is elaborated, with borrowings from homiletic sources, in Chaunticleer's long speech to Pertelote; both poets refer (directly or obliquely) to Jack Straw, to the fall of Troy, to a widow, to Fortune, and to Friday; and Gower's assertion that all misfortune is due to sin becomes in NPT the doctrine that Fortune favors those who help themselves. Astell's most interesting suggestion concerns the role of the cock in the two poems: a voice of warning in the visio, the cock anticipates the role of preacher and teacher that Gower assumes himself in the remainder of VC. Chaunticleer also recalls his creator, but as poet rather than as preacher. His role is singer rather than priest. He rejects his own prophetic vision and fails to discern the fox; later the fox is able to seize him by flattering his singing. Chaunticleer is able to turn to tables on the fox, however, as Chaucer is on the implications concerning his shortcomings as moral teacher: his tale finally offers a "moralite" on the need for moral alertness and social responsibility that in the end is not all that different from Gower's. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.1]. Reprinted in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 264 (Detroit: Gale, 2017), pp. 188-95. Author/Editor Author/Editor Astell, Ann W Published Astell, Ann W. "The Peasants' Revolt: Cock-Crow in Gower and Chaucer." Essays in Medieval Studies: Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association 10 (1993), pp. 53-64. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Vox Clamantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Peasants' Revolt: Cock-Crow in Gower and Chaucer. 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 Allen attempts to overthrow the prevalent view of Gower as a rigid and doctrinaire moralist, arguing that the poet is fully aware of the complexity and contingency of moral choice and that his purpose is not simply to correct but to engage the reader in the process of moral decision. She cites Chaucer's dedication of T&C in support of her argument: Gower is invoked, she claims, not as the corrector of the moral ambiguities in that "insistently ambiguous poem," but rather as "a fellow muddier of moral waters" (pp. 628-29). Chaucer's appreciation of his contemporary is also reflected in MLIntro, and the bulk of Allen's long essay consists of a subtle and challenging rereading of the ML's comments and of the three tales in CA that he refers to, in which incest either figures or (in the case of "Constance") is suppressed. Her argument depends, of course, on driving a wedge between Chaucer and ML, whose comments both on Gower and on Chaucer reveal the limitations of his own prudishness. For ML, the only moral choice involved in storytelling lies in the choice of subject; he remains blind to the way in which his treatment of Custance itself amounts to "something like incest" (p. 630, citing Wetherbee). Through ML, Chaucer invokes Gower as an alternative to the conventional morality that ML represents. The real threat that Gower offers to ML lies in his effort to provoke the reader's participation in moral choice. In both "Canace and Machaire" and "Apollonius of Tyre," Gower depicts incest as both natural and unnatural; he also exhibits a compassion for Canace that is neither exculpatory nor possessive. He shifts attention from the horror of the act to the moral responsibility of the human will, and to both the necessity and the complexity of moral choice. Amans' reaction to the tale, distancing himself from its overt lesson, also raises questions of moral responsibility and of the process of interpretation that are more relevant to us as readers than are the actions of the characters in the tale. To the extent that we accept or reject his reading, Gower forces us to examine the basis of our own interpretive choices in a way that is destabilizing of ML's assertion of a single socially acceptable morality. ML also misreads "Apollonius of Tyre," seeing it only as an "endorsement of violence" (p. 636). While Gower's tale obviously condemns Antiochus' incest, it also offers an exemplary lesson in growth and self-exploration in the adventures of Apollonius. The climactic moment, his reunion with Thaise, verges on a re-enactment of Antiochus' forcing of his daughter, but reverses it through "a series of subtle acts of reading, both within the tale and outside it at the level of the Confessio readers" (p. 639). While we may be invited to read like Thaise, we are also shown the possibility of reading like Amans, who again expresses his frustration at the lack of any precise applicability to his own situation, a frustration that perhaps mirrors our own. But the only way out for Amans that the poem offers is through reading. "Reading itself becomes a paradigmatic moral activity because it has the capacity to apply to different readers' individual development. . . . The kind of morality that Gower has to offer, finally, is the circuitous process of Amans's internal development, and the hope that reading about Amans's reading can generate a complementary moral process in us" (p. 640). All of this subtlety in Gower's purpose is lost, of course, on ML, "who refuses to see the ethical implications of Gower's incest stories because he has an inkling that Gower's ethics might challenge his moral stance. Specifically, Gower's ethical complexity might discourage the Man of Law's use of a sanctimonious tale to claim social status--and might reveal the ways in which the Man of Law's reception reduces human social activity to a system of violation and victimization" (p. 641). As her final example, Allen turns to Gower's "Constance." Where many have read Gower as if he were Trivet, she argues instead that "he lodges a critique of Trivet, destabilizes Constance's morality, and thus presents a subtle argument for the moral value of narrative instability" (p. 641). She sees the suppression of the incest motive of the original version of the story as an example of the silence that Genius advocates in face of detraction, but argues that such restraint and silence--as represented in Constance's own passivity and in her refusal to reveal her identity--ultimately victimize the heroine by making her an accomplice in the violence that besets her and by helping preserve the institutions that perpetuate it. Such a reading borders on the perverse, Allen acknowledges, and is sustained only by the closest examination of the imagery. But that is the poet's purpose, she argues. "Gower's narratives include readers in conventional or comfortable assumptions which he subtly destabilizes. This process implicates his readers in his plot choices: if at first the plot seems transparent and predictable, as so many readers have found Gower to be, then disjunctive or troubling moments turn the focus onto the readerly desire for predictability and transparency" (p. 646). Our own desire for the more comfortable reading can make us too complicit in the violence that Constance suffers. Gower's very style may encourage such a passivity, and Chaucer's response may thus constitute a critique: "Gower sets up his readers to read passively, and then proceeds to make us ask in retrospect why we read as we did. Chaucer's Man of Law embodies the risk of such a style: he fails to ask questions about his own reception" (p. 647). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Allen, Elizabeth Published Allen, Elizabeth. "Chaucer Answers Gower: Constance and the Trouble with Reading." ELH 63 (1997), pp. 627-655. ISSN 0013-8304 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 Chaucer Answers Gower: Constance and the Trouble with Reading. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 employs the methodology of feminist thematics to examine the motif of the reflecting pool in signalling and shaping gender relationships in medieval romances by Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Geoffrey Chaucer, and John Gower. It has long been recognized that later medieval romances create and perpetuate masculine and feminine stereotypes, hierarchies of reason and love, spirit and flesh, strength and weakness. My work identifies a steady movement toward thickening the boundaries of these stereotypes and rejecting earlier, semi-mythological representations of female power. By examining a series of traditional canonical texts through a common motif invested with the cultural and poetic ideals of medieval love poetry, my study illuminates the means by which the definitions of gender which permeate our culture today were absorbed into western literary tradition." Directed by F. Anne Payne. [JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Grinnell, Natalie Published Grinnell, Natalie. "Reflecting Pools: The Thematic Construction of Gender in Medieval Romance." PhD thesis, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1997. 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 Reflecting Pools: The Thematic Construction of Gender in Medieval Romance. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "Modifying nature, keeping one's natural instincts under reason's control, and learning to love properly is a duty which Genius tries to teach Amans in John Gower's CA. The conflict between man's kinde, a word Gower uses to denote passionate love, and his reason, is a common theme in medieval literature. To Gower, marriage offers man the perfect reconciliation between the dueling forces of kinde and reason, and throughout the tales in the CA he proposes 'honeste love,' a reciprocal live which 'dar schewen the visage / In alle places openly,' as the remedy to what ails man and society (IV.1478-79). This dissertation explores how Gower uses the aspects of love in the CA--the notions of kinde and reason in the sphere of love; 'honeste love' in the Marriages Tales of the Four Wives; passionate and excessive live in the Forsaken Women's tales; and Amans' lovesickness--to emphasize and to illustrate his beliefs that reason must rule man in all things, including his natural instincts to love. Gower firmly believes each man or woman is responsible for his or her behavior and accountable for his or her love decisions, whether reasonable or foolish. That he maintains this perspective for woman as well as man is notable and admirable, especially since he employs anti-feminist rhetoric in the MO and VC. In the CA he is partial neither to man nor woman, and although it appears his sympathies lie with women, it is rather that he views woman as man's equal; if he is responsible for his love actions, then so is she. Gower's unique pro-woman voice in the CA proves this point: man cannot blame woman, and woman cannot blame man. In Gower there are no excuses for unrestrained and foolish behavior, although he recognizes that it is often difficult to restrain passion. Gower's Genius is a perfect Gowerian storyteller for in his moral tales lies the predicament facing all men--whether to follow his passionate nature, kinde, or his reasoning capabilities, his wise voice within." Directed by Robert R. Raymo. [JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bakalian, Ellen Shaw Published Bakalian, Ellen Shaw. "Aspects of love in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis.'." PhD thesis, New York University, 1998. 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 Aspects of love in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis.' 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 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 Expanded abstract supplied by the author: "Exemplary literature perpetuates the absolutist notion that a past event, the narration and reception of that event, and the reader;s social behavior exist in absolute causal alignment. But Middle English texts in the exemplary mode, from conduct-books to ambitious poetry, rarely carry out their own claims of integrity. This study explores how several writers--including Gower, Chaucer, Caxton, and Henryson--anticipate a wide range of new secular audiences, attempting to both constrain interpretation and open readers to the transformative powers of literature. Drawing on recent theories of translation, imitation, and intertextuality, the study investigates how textual imitation both enables and complicates exemplary imitation: how, that is, the relations between 'olde bokes' and new suggests relations between new books and new readers. Chapter 2 and 3 argue that, in the last two books of the CA, Gower increasingly advocates the fictive register as educational method. Chapter 2, "Recognition and Reflection: Reading Women in Two exemplary Compilations," paries his "Apollonius of Tyre" with Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry in order to examine the connections between moral injunction and imaginative fiction. Unlike the violent injunctive discourse of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry, "Apollonius of Tyre" represents moral choice as an interpretative process demanding readerly acts of discrimination, exemplified by Thaise's reinterpretation of her silent father. Genius's moralizing and Amans's resistance to the tale encourage us to read the tale better than they do. In concluding the CA with "Apollonius of Tyre," Gower makes his broadest demands upon his readers and his most ambitious claim for the educational value of imaginative fiction. Chapter 3, "From Endorsement to Disavowal: The Politics of Exemplarity in the Tale of Virginia," examines Gower's version of the tale of Virginia (at the end of Book 7) along with Livy's and Chaucer's versions. In Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Virginia's father saves her virginity by stabbing her in the public forum, and the act constitutes a successful call to revolutionary action. Gower renders the father tyrannical and suppresses the efficacy of the revolution. Livy's apparent endorsement of Virginia's death emerges in Gower as a rigid form of historical truth-telling in which the exemplum must be destroyed in order to remain exemplary. Gower translates Livy's exemplary efficacy into an argument for the political importance of metaphor--and of fiction itself. Chapter 1, '"Grisilde is deed": Reflecting Audience in Late Medieval England,' lays out the study's methods. Chapter 4, 'Alienation and Lectio Facilior: The Pardoner and His Audiences,' examines Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale' through the lends of its reception in fifteenth-century manuscripts and in the Tale of Beryn; and Chapter 5, 'Chaucer's Criseyde in Henryson's "poleist glas,"' examines the Testament of Cresseid as an exemplary response to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." Directed by Karla Taylor. [JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Allen, Elizabeth Gage Published Allen, Elizabeth Gage. "'Lat the chaf be stille': Exemplary Fictions is Late Medieval England." PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1997. Open access at http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:9732034 (accessed January 23, 2023). Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Lat the chaf be stille': Exemplary Fictions is Late Medieval England. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Berthelette's two editions of CA (in 1532 and 1554) have an importance unequalled by any single early edition of Chaucer: not reprinted until 1810, and superseded only by Pauli's edition of 1857, they were the only means of access to Gower's English poem (apart from Caxton's even earlier edition of 1483) for more than 300 years. Machan is less interested in causes than in effects, in the consequences of Berthelette's providing the "preliminary interpretive frame" (p. 145) for most readers during this long period. His description of the book as handsome and carefully produced is confirmed by his reproduction of a single page from the volume (from Book 5); and with its title page, its dedication to Henry 8, the publisher's letter to the reader, and the detailed ten-page table of contents, Berthelette has done everything he can to render Gower's long and complex poem accessible to his readers. Machan identifies several ways in which the book is a typical product of its time. The dedication to Henry invokes a "nobuls and commons" united under the moral and literary authority of the king. The poem itself serves both a moralizing and a nationalistic purpose, edifying its readers "in the way humanist literary paradigms require" (p. 148), and testifying to the greatness of England itself. In his address to his readers, Berthelette recasts Gower as a conservative preserver of the language against the linguistic novelties of his own time, where earlier he had been praised, with Chaucer, for the eloquence of his rhetoric. And Berthelette's claims about restoring an authentic text, while to some extent true, also constitute a typical gesture of sixteenth-century publishers and serve his rhetorical purpose of inscribing both the conservativeness and antiquity of his author and the reliability of his own edition. Machan identifies two major ways in which Berthelette shaped the later reception of the CA, in the judgment of the relative merits of Gower with Chaucer and in the characterization of Gower as primarily a moral poet. Berthelette's own comments implicitly make Gower subservient to Chaucer; and he evidently consciously decided to present him as the author of only a single work, omitting even the colophon to CA in which his other works are described, where Chaucer was already known for the variety of his compositions. What little he says about Gower's life, moreover, cast Gower as "resolutely Roman" (p. 155) during the time when Chaucer was becomingly increasingly Protestant. In his prefatory material he praises Gower for his morality. His presentation of the poem, moreover, with the Latin glosses incorporated directly in to the text, inserts an authoritative moral voice that directs the reader's responses and preempts interpretation, in contrast to the apologetic and self-deprecating Chaucerian persona. The reception of the work was also shaped by Berthelette's own reputation as a serious and conservative moralist. And finally, by remaining for so long the only available edition of Gower's works, Berthelette's established Gower as an increasingly antiquated figure, undeserving of new editorial attention, where Chaucer, regularly revived and re-presented, was forever modern, a trap from which Gower was not freed until he attracted the attention of the philologists of the middle of the nineteenth century. In an appendix, "Printed History of Latin Glosses in the Confessio" (pp. 164-66), Machan argues that "any new scholarly edition" of CA "needs to return the glosses to the status they hold in the manuscripts and early editions" (p. 166), that is, it must present them within the same column as the text rather than placing them in the margins as Pauli and Macaulay did. Echard (in her essay in Studies in Philology) also objects to seeing the relation between text and gloss only as Macaulay presented it, but she gives a fuller consideration of the variety of alternatives in the MSS. In making his own choice of a single format, Machan neglects to point that in all of the earliest copies of the poem, and all that Gower might have had any hand in, including Bodleian Fairfax 3 and Bodley 902, which he cites, but also Cambridge Univ. Mm.2.21 and Huntington Ellesmere 26 A 17, which he doesn't, the glosses are placed in the margin. That the incorporation of the glosses into the text is a later scribal or editorial choice is indicated by the fact that many get placed in different places in different copies, often with no regard at all to the sense of the English text that they interrupt. Machan's advice is defensible, but it forces us to consider what we mean by "edition." If we mean an effort to present the text more or less as the poet left it, then Macaulay got it right; it we mean an effort to represent it as some group of later readers saw it, then one might agree with Machan. Even in Macaulay's text, of course, the relation between Latin and English is still open to interpretation, on which again see Echard above. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Machan, Tim William Published Machan, Tim William. "Thomas Berthelette and Gower's Confessio." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 18 (1996), pp. 143-166. Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations Biography of Gower 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 Thomas Berthelette and Gower's Confessio. 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 "Chaucer's Ghoast" is an anonymous collection of twelve short poems (one set within a short story in prose) published in London in 1672, and evidently never reprinted since. It has been described as a loose translation of selections from Ovid, and sometimes (e.g. by the NUC) attributed to Charles Cotton (1630-87). Joshua has identified it as a modernization of selections from CA, and reprints ten lines from the two works (from the story of Pygmaleon) to demonstrate the closeness of the seventeenth-century author's borrowing. The non-Ovidian tales of Socrates and Arion are referred to in a note, but the other nine tales are not identified. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Joshua, Essaka. Published Joshua, Essaka. "Chaucer's Ghoast and Gower's Confessio Amantis." Notes and Queries 44 (1997), pp. 458-459. Gower Subject Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations 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 Chaucer's Ghoast and Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 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 Echard addresses the Latin apparatus of CA that was evidently of Gower's own composition: the glosses in their various forms (the speaker markers, the identification of sources, and the prose summaries of the tales and discursive passages) and the elegiac couplets that are interspersed throughout. She identifies and contests two assumptions that underlie most recent commentary on these portions of the poem: that the Latin passages by their very nature constitute a hegemonic and authoritative discourse, and that glosses, whether marginal or otherwise, always successfully functioned to control the interpretation of the associated text. In CA, she argues, the Latin portions alone offer a variety of voices, contrasting in form, in accessibility, in function, and in reliability, and therefore cannot offer a single stable point of reference, especially on the meaning of the English. "Far from invoking authority," she claims, "Gower's Latin problematizes the question of authority in the Confessio by presenting a reader with several competing authoritative voices, Latin and vernacular, none of which seems capable of taming the text" (p. 7). Or as she puts it elsewhere, "The language of authority exposes the limitations of authority" (p. 27). She illustrates her point with passages from the poem in which different portions of the Latin apparatus collide either with one another or with the English text, including the opening of the dramatic frame, where the assertions of veracity based on real experience in the English and in the Latin verses are undercut by the marginal assertion that the whole thing is a fiction, and the tales of Florent, Albinus and Rosemund, Constance, and Narcissus, in each of which, for different reasons, it is difficult to locate a single interpretive center. Echard extends her argument to include a consideration of the ways in which the Latin apparatus is presented in the MSS of CA, and it is not among the smallest merits of her essay that she offers the most complete available description of the variety of ways in which scribes and editors arranged the Latin and English texts on the page, including four plates as illustrations, two each from Bodleian MSS Fairfax 3 and Bodley 294. Each different arrangement constitutes a different interpretation of the relationship among the different parts and of their relative authority, she argues. The variety of presentations multiplies the interpretive possibilities of the text, and constitutes a confirmation of the instability that appears to have been part of Gower's own intention in juxtaposing so many different voices. This is an essay that deserves to be read in its entirety, both for the author's specific observations and for the suggestiveness of her analysis. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Echard, Siân Published Echard, Siân. "With Carmen's Help: Latin Authorities in the Confessio Amantis." Studies in Philology 95 (1998), pp. 1-40. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource With Carmen's Help: Latin Authorities in the Confessio Amantis. 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 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 presentation of a text is also a response to it and an interpretation of it, Echard asserts, echoing Doyle and Parkes (1978) among many others. Because of its length and the complexity of its structure, CA presented a number of challenges to both scribes and editors which resulted in very different presentations despite the high level of consistency in the text. In this essay Echard is concerned with a single editorial device, the prefatory tables of contents by which CA was introduced, and she chooses four examples for contrast. Each shapes the reader's experience of the poem in a different way; and though all are in English, each draws in different proportions from the Latin and English texts. In Princeton Univ. Lib. MS Taylor 5, the table consists only of a list of stories, ignoring both the dramatic and the conceptual frames and thus neglecting the exemplary function of the tales; and it also passes over the contents of the Prologue. The tabulator evidently relies exclusively on the English text, and examining only the first few lines, often gives a misleading view of the contents of the stories. The table in Magdalen Coll. MS 213 is more careful and more detailed; it makes use of both the Latin and the English; it sometimes makes reference to the framework of the sins within which the tales are contained, but not in any consistent manner; and it includes references to Nebuchadnezzar's dream and to Daniel's prophecy in the Prologue. Caxton, in his edition of 1483, is even more thorough. In his introduction, he describes both the dramatic frame and the framework of the sins, and in his table he includes a detailed account of the subcategories of sin. He nonetheless portrays the poem primarily as a collection of tales. Berthelette, in his edition of 1532, enlarges Caxton's table. He gives fuller treatment to the long and multi-episodic tales. He includes headings for the different topics in the Prologue and for the mythographic and scientific topics in Books 5 and 7, and the reader thus perceives the work as encyclopedic in nature as well as as a collection of stories. At the same time, Berthelette is more sensitive than Caxton to the actual moral import of many of the tales. In including so complete a description of the poem, Berthelette's table is the most useful, but it is also the one that imposes its own vision of the poem most fully upon the reader. While they may or may not be based upon classical models, Echard concludes, these various efforts to provide an epitome to the poem represent the beginnings of Gower criticism. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Echard, Siân Published Echard, Siân. "Pre-Texts: Tables of Contents and the Reading of John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Medium AEvum 66 (1997), pp. 270-287. 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 Pre-Texts: Tables of Contents and the Reading of John Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Craun's study is concerned with the ethical evaluation of speech and language, and more particularly with the "Sins of the Tongue," as they appear in the "pastoral" literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (that is, in the manuals of instruction for priests that followed the Fourth Lateran Council and in the related handbooks for penitents) and in four major texts of fourteenth-century English literature. In his first chapter he surveys his corpus: it concludes some names that will be familiar to Gowerians, such as Peyraut and Frere Lorens, but also some that are much less well known, such as the long thirteenth-century treatise De Lingua (once attributed to Grosseteste) that Craun has examined in manuscript. In most of these the "Sins of the Tongue" have become a category of their own apart from the Seven Deadly Sins by which treatises of this sort are traditionally organized, but the purpose is the same, to identify, classify, and provide remedies for the various subtypes of the sin for the benefit of both priests and penitents. In his second chapter, Craun takes a closer look at both the form and the content of the treatment of speech in these works. He identifies an "Augustinian" strain in the treatises in the focus on intentionality as the ethical standard by which speech acts are to be judged and on the relation between speech and reason. The writers of the treatises are thus concerned more with "falsehood" than with "falsity" (p. 40): the relation between speakers and the social consequences of truthful or untruthful speech receives more attention than the problematic relation between sign and referent. There is also what Craun calls a "Solomonic" strain, which advises prudence and moderation over hasty or heedless speech. To enforce their lessons and to win their audience away from sin, the writers draw upon a variety of materials, including sententiae (but not usually proverbial or folk wisdom), analogies and comparisons, and narrative exempla, making both rational and emotional appeals; and Craun describes well the fragmentary and disjunctive quality that results from their copiousness (p. 67), in terms which, though he doesn't mention it here, will remind many readers of the experience of reading MO, the work of Gower's that is obviously closest to the tradition in question. In his four remaining chapters, Craun examines how both the contents of these works--their classification of the sins and their hortatory materials--and their rhetorical stance, the address of a moral authority to a penitent, have been adopted and adapted in Patience, Confessio Amantis, Piers Plowman, and fragments IX-X of the Canterbury Tales. Patience he treats as an exemplum on "murmur," a form of deviant speech given prominence in the treatises, which also provide a precedent for using Jonah as an example. The Biblical tale, Craun finds, is everywhere in the poem mediated by traditional pastoral discourse on adequate and inadequate speech; and he emphasizes the creation of the poem's speaking voice, the authoritative catechist who addresses his exemplum to a reading audience and who interprets it for them, and who at the end, portrays himself as affected by the tale and enacts the choice that the tale requires in the telling of the exemplum. In Piers Plowman, the connection is to the pastoral tradition is found in the Langland's discussion of minstrels, which may reflect his unease about the status of poetry, as others have claimed, but which also draws directly, Craun observes, from the treatises' condemnation of entertainers and of the two related sins of scurrilitas and turpiloquium. In establishing this link, Craun is able to draw a closer connection between Langland's references to minstrelsy and both his social and his spiritual concerns: the rebuke of nobles for rewarding sinful speech instead of helping the poor reveals his preoccupation with how wealth is distributed, while the contrasting uses of speech in the poem reflect his concern with the best way to achieve salvation. In the Canterbury Tales, Craun notes that the Manciple's Tale is as heavily marked by traditional pastoral discourse as the Parson's is. As the host seems to recognize, the Manciple's public criticism of the Cook is an example of the sin of Chiding as it is described in the treatises, while the Parson takes unusual care to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate reproof is his discussion of Ire. More important is the way in which each imitates the pastoral discourse from which he draws. The Manciple offers a parody, while the Parson practices the very norms that he advocates. "The Manciple parades jeeringly the inherent contradictions and limits of discourse on deviant speech in general, gutting its claims to provide comprehensive, binding norms for speech . . . [while] the Parson, in response, asserts that pastoral discourse on specific sins is a powerful instrument for moral analysis and religious formation" (p. 189). That Gower should be indebted to the pastoral tradition in a work that is concerned with a confession comes, of course, as no surprise. Formally, Craun points out, the pastoral interrogationes provide a model for Genius' role in the poem, the forma confitendi a model for Amans' replies, though not one that Gower follows slavishly. The interrogatio, for instance, was meant to follow a confession if the priest thought it incomplete, rather than precede it as is Genius' normal practice in the Confessio (pp. 134-35). The Confessio is also marked, Craun argues, by a pervasive concern with the moral dimensions of speech which derives from the same models. Seven of the confessional sequences in the poem are concerned with "Sins of the Tongue;" acts of verbal deception occupy a central position in many of the tales; and the "deviant" speech of the exempla is set in contrast to the honest self-revelation that Amans is encouraged to practice in his confession. One of the three sections of the encyclopedia of human knowledge in Book 7, moreover, is given to Rhetoric, and it is followed by an exposition of "Trouthe" which echoes many of the same ethical concerns. The comparison of Gower's work to his pastoral models reveals both similarities and differences, Craun observes, which can help us understand both Genius' and Amans' strategies. He focuses his examination of the poem on Book 7 and on Amans' lesson on Detraction in Book 2. Genius' treatment of Rhetoric departs from Latini, Gower's source for the structure of Book 7, is its emphasis on the moral use of language. He begins where the pastoral treatises do, with the origin and function of speech, deriving the moral imperative on the uses of speech from its divine creator. Both divine origins and the cognitive function of speech are invoked again in the lesson on "Trouthe." There, however, the pastoral concern is extended into the political, for what is at stake in the lesson for rulers is nothing less than civic concord and discord. The opposite of proper speech is portrayed in the lesson on Flattery. There and elsewhere in the poem, Gower reveals his consciousness of the "fragility" of the spoken word, and offers an alternative to deceit in plain, unselfish counsel. Book 7 thus sets the ethical norms for use of speech for all of the rest of the Confessio. Genius acts as the sage, providing both lessons on and a model of truth-telling speech, and Amans is the "ruler" who must rule both himself and his tongue, and whose experience as a lover "reveals the seductive appeal and destructive consequences of the deceiving word, paralleling the politically deviant speech of the flatterers" (p. 132). In his examination of the lesson on Detraction, Craun points out the many correspondences to the penitential manuals, both in form and in imagery. Along the way, he discovers a combination of logical and emotional appeals that is usually denied Genius but that echoes the multiple discursive strategies of the treatises. He is also alert to a number of differences from these sources, which he interprets in dramatic terms, as Genius' conscious attempts to influence the lover before him, as part of the recognized duty of the priest to adapt his instruction to the particular circumstances of the penitent. On the same basis, he offers a justification for Genius' inclusion of the long tale of Constance as part of the lesson on Detraction. It is, he says, a "rhetorical performance within a confessional sequence" (p. 148), not a self-contained exemplum. Amans has already acknowledged his guilt, and the tale serves less to define the sin than it does to win Amans away from his sin by illustrating the consequences both for the sinner and for his victims, appealing, along the way, to the universality of the moral norms that it teaches rather than illustrating them exclusively in terms of love. There is obviously a great deal of value in Craun's study. He is an alert and persuasive reader of Gower. He has also considered a broader range of earlier works than are usually cited, even by those who have concerned themselves with Gower's indebtedness to the penitential tradition, and his first two chapters thus provide a very useful introduction to this very important group of texts. In focusing on the "Sins of the Tongue," moreover, he has discovered an elegant way of relating the form and language of the works that he examines to their ethical teaching, following a path first laid down for the study of Gower by Schmitz in 1974. If there is any disappointment about his treatment of Gower, it is that it is too brief. His observation that language is a pervasive concern of the Confessio deserves to be demonstrated and analyzed at greater length. At the same time, there are some problems with isolating the lesson on Detraction in the way that Craun does: the tale of Constance might also be seen within a broader argument in Book 2 rather than in terms of an immediate rhetorical purpose deriving from the lesson at hand. It is also not clear how typical this lesson is of the entire poem. Craun is aware of many of the ways in which his argument impinges on current disagreements about CA, and takes time out to allude to some on these. It isn't evident, however, that he is aware of all. He points out how Gower, in contrast to some of his contemporaries, is almost exclusively concerned with the human victims of evil speech, not with the harm to the transcendent (p. 118), but he doesn't pursue the significance of his observation to our struggles over the spiritual dimensions of Genius' (or Gower's) instruction. In his discussion of Gower's debt to the penitentials, he doesn't mention R.F. Yeager's proposal (1984) that the "Sins of the Tongue" provide the explanation for the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated topics in Book 6, the only other instance I know of in which this category of sin has been invoked in the interpretation of the poem. And he equivocates a bit on Genius' role. In emphasizing the importance of Book 7 in supplying moral norms for the rest of CA, he attributes to Genius both a genuine moral authority and a practice that is consistent with it (pp. 130-31), but he takes it back at the very end of his chapter with an allusion to the critics who called into question Genius' reliability as a moral guide (p. 155). But then what are we to make of the parenthetical sentence that immediately follows? "Such ironic readings of individual sequences, however, are only fully convincing when they are grounded in the pastoral tradition of specific vices as well as in the conventions of confessional discourse." Can such readings be grounded in the texts that he has examined or can they not? Genius' moral authority is one of the most important questions that divides us in Gower criticism at this time, and where Craun might have been able to help settle the matter, he backs away. All of this is to say, of course, that he has opened up a very productive line of research, and that he has laid the foundations that others who come after may now build upon. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 17.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Craun, Edwin D. Published Craun, Edwin D.. "Lies, Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker." Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature., 31 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997 Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification 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 Lies, Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Cambridge University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "Debates over translations in medieval Britain occurred at the crossroads of Latin and the insular vernaculars: it was here that writers (ecclesiastic and secular) argued about not only the proper relation of past to present, but of linguistic to national identity, of sacred to secular power. This dissertation looks at medieval writers in whose works we find a conflict between the practice and the representation of translation, seeking to resituate these translations within their social contexts. . . . [Writers considered include Geoffrey of Monmouth, Trevisa, and Chaucer.] This context also yields fresh interpretations of other late medieval writers, including John Gower and Thomas Hoccleve." Directed by Marie Boroff and Lee Patterson. [JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Robertson, Kellie Paige Published Robertson, Kellie Paige. "'Sethe that Babyl was ybuld': Translation and Dissent in Later Medieval England." PhD thesis, Yale University, 1997. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sethe that Babyl was ybuld': Translation and Dissent in Later Medieval England. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review "The aim of this thesis is to offer a reading of the position of women in the tales of the Confessio Amantis and also to contextualise John Gower's portrayal, particularly with reference to his sources and some contemporary analogues. The Introduction undertakes a consideration of theoretical problems, placing particular emphasis on the problematics of the female voice within a male poet's work, the pagan nature of Gower's material, and the exemplum genre. Chapter 1 analyses Gower's presentation of women's speech and places it in the context of medieval social norms and guides to conduct. This is followed by a statistical study of speech in the Confessio and some analogues. The results are examined in the context of the stereotype of the garrulous woman, to question whether Gower evaluated women's speech as negative and to conclude whether their use of words compensates for their restricted access to the world of deeds. Chapter 2 considers the position of women in the family. It is mostly concerned with women as wives since the topic of marriage is particularly important in the Confessio, but the position of mothers and daughters within the power structures of the family is also examined. Chapter 3 begins by discussing Gower's position in the medieval discourse on virginity and goes on to argue that his views on sexuality are part of his more general ideas on Nature. In his poem female desire is not stereotyped and finds many ways of expressing itself. Chapter 4 considers how and in what ways Gower's descriptions of women's bodies and their attire, and also cross-dressing and sex-change, are used to convey particular attitudes to women. In Chapter 5, Gower's use of language in the descriptions of rape in the Mirour de l'Omme, the Latin glosses and the tales of the Confessio is examined. Then Gower's representation of rape is explored, especially in the Tale of Tereus and Philomena and the Tale of Lucrece, comparing them to their sources and analogues. The last chapter investigates male behaviour in the poem in order to shed light on the position of women in the poem. It discusses whether Gower presents masculinity and femininity as opposed to each other, or whether so-called masculine and feminine qualities complement each other in an ideal human being. Although here may be a difference between male and female behaviour, this does not necessarily mean that they are judged differently. A brief conclusion draws the main lines of the argument together in a discussion of pro-feminine role-models in the Confessio." Directed by Helen Cooper. [JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Mast, Isabelle Published Mast, Isabelle. "The Representation of Women in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." PhD thesis, Oxford University, 1997. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations 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 The Representation of Women in John Gower's Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997 Type The nature or genre of the resource Thesis NonPeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review One might expect Gower, with his revisions in both CA and VC and with his "Cronica Tripertita," to occupy a significant place in a study of the Lancastrian enlistment of both poetry and history in their quest for legitimacy in the first decades of the fifteenth century, but Strohm mentions our poet only once, and without reference to Gower's participation in Henry's cause. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Strohm, Paul Published Strohm, Paul. "England's Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399-1422." New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998 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 England's Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399-1422. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Yale University 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 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 Lowe cites Gower's comments on the war in CA 3 and VC 3 and 7 (pp. 175-77) in his discussion of fourteenth-century precedents for the humanist and post-Reformation critique of the notion of a "just war" and the advocacy of peace as most beneficial to the commonwealth. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Lowe, Ben Published Lowe, Ben. "War and Commonwealth in Mid-Tudor England." Sixteenth Century Journal 21 (1990), pp. 171-191. ISSN 0361-0160 Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Influence and Later Allusion Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource War and Commonwealth in Mid-Tudor England. 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 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 Ambrisco, Alan Scott Published Ambrisco, Alan Scott. "Medieval Man-Eaters: Cannibalism and Community in Middle English Literature." PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1999. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review "This dissertation examines Middle English texts that use tropes of cannibalism to negotiate among, and occasionally critique, England's own national, religious, and linguistic identities. Medieval romance and travel literature, drawing on a tradition begun by Herodotus, typically figure cannibalism as a marker of barbarity associated with non-Christian cultures. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, representations of cannibalism were employed by Middle English texts in more complex ways. "Richard Coeur de Lion," "Mandeville's Travels," and John Gower's "Confessio Amantis" contemplate cannibalism (whether literal or figurative) on the part of the English subject. Each text thus articulates identity as a complex negotiation between the self and other, in the process recognizing otherness within the very enter of the identity (both personal and communal) being constructed. Eventually I move away from cannibalism proper, examining what I call a cannibalizing mode of translation operative in Chaucer's Squire's Tale. As the epitome of the process by which something alien is absorbed, the incorporative translation enacted in The Squire's Tale consumes the cultural difference of the East in an effort to promote the English language. Together, these four chapters argues that, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, English representations of the western subject occasionally and contradictorily utliize tropes of cannibalism in ways that are constitutive of a developing English identity. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Medieval Man-Eaters: Cannibalism and Community in Middle English Literature. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Zaerr, Linda Marie Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Published Zaerr, Linda Marie. "Duke or Duck: Reading the Stories in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Willamette Journal of the Liberal Arts 4 (1988), pp. 1-9. ISSN 0740-6789 Review Zaerr uses her own youthful misreading of the first line of the tale of "Mundus and Paulina" as an exemplum on the possibilities of misreading the entire poem: believing from the reference to the villain as a "duck" that she was reading a beast fable, only on consideration of the entire context did she realize that he was a duke. The "duck" in the interpretation of the entire poem is the superficial acceptance of Genius' claim to present a coherent morality of fin amour. This is a reading that quacks and waddles because of the tediousness of many of the stories viewed in this light and because of the persistent contradictions between the tales and the frame. A closer examination of how Gower's purposes build upon Genius' stumbling reveals the "duke." The examples that Zaerr uses are the two pairs of tales about Aeneas and Ulysses in Book 4. The first pair, which Genius evidently thinks offer parallel lessons, actually set up two contradictory situations. Aeneas never professes a love for Dido, and her protests against his "slowthe," cast within the vocabulary of "fin amour," reveal her own sensuality. Ulysses is genuinely guilty of slowthe and knows it; Penelope, however, forgives rather than blames him. Unknown to Genius, they illustrate both a more solidly based "honeste" love and also a spirit of forgiveness that is modeled on God's mercy. In the two later tales, Genius blames Ulysses for sloth because of his initial unwillingness to leave Penelope rather than for the tardiness of his return, and he credits Aeneas for his accomplishments after he abandons Dido. "Sloth, defined in terms of fin amour, is revealed to be a contradictory concept" (p. 7), and the scaffolding of Genius' moral system disintegrates. In its place, however, we are able to see the true moral system of the poem. "These shifts in meaning work together to exemplify a flexible alternative, provided by divine mercy, to the conflicting rules and simplistic contradictory proofs provided by the moral system of 'fin amour'. . . . Gower uses the complexity and contradiction in his 'Confessio Amantis' to convey an idea of the complexity and comprehensiveness of the working of God's redemptive love" (p. 9). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 19.1.] 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 1988 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource Duke or Duck: Reading the Stories in John Gower's Confessio Amantis. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Simpson, James Published Simpson, James. "Breaking the Vacuum: Ricardian and Henrician Ovidianism." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1999), pp. 325-355. ISSN 1082-9636 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review Simpson's agenda in this ambitious essay is re-open the question of the distinction between the "Renaissance" or Early Modern period and the later Middle Ages. He argues that two characteristics that are said to set off Early Modern writing---a "historical consciousness" and awareness of historical difference and a consciousness of the self as unstable and open to construction---are actually fully present in English Ovidian poetry of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. His secondary purpose is to demonstrate that Early Modern poets such as Wyatt and Surrey were constrained by their discursive environment from the full measure of rediscovered historical consciousness with which they have been credited. Ovid is given a large place in his analysis as a model both for the use of history and for the poetic manipulation of the self, while Petrarch's role as groundbreaker is correspondingly diminished. The two poets that Simpson uses to represent the period around 1390 are of course Chaucer, represented principally in his argument by his "Complaint unto Pity," and in the portion of the essay that interests us the most, John Gower and CA. Simpson's comments on CA draw upon his discussion is his earlier Sciences and the Self (see JGN 15, no. 2, pp. 11-15), but they offer a subtler reading of Gower's debt to Ovid and of his use of the voices of Amans and Genius and they have a great deal more to say about the way in which Gower's historical consciousness is manifested in the poem. The CA is "driven," he claims, "by an Ovidian deflection, even neutralization of history, just as it reveals the conditions in which history and politics can be reactivated and reformed by the elegiac experience" (p. 333). The opening invokes the beginning of the "Amores," in which Cupid commands that Ovid abandon his historical subject and write about his own pain in love: after attacking the division of the contemporary political world, the narrator of CA finds himself in Book 1 subject to the command of Cupid and required to confess as a demonstration of his truthful service. "If the confession should reconfirm Amans' integrity as a faithful subject to Cupid, however, the rest of the poem can only confirm the impossibility of psychic integration under the tyrannical regime of Cupid. Amans can only speak from, and deepen, the fissures of a self already divided" (p. 335). His "self-division" is also a "division from the political and historical world" and "an alienation from history and historical meaning" (p. 336). Neither Amans nor Genius, through most of the poem, are able to assemble any of the multiple historical incidents that are offered as exempla into any coherent narrative, and thus the CA, "like the Amores, is driven by the iterative force of desire, which seeks refuge from the relentlessness of history by fragmenting it" (p. 337). Genius also functions, however, as the means by which Amans' world and the world of history on which he has turned his back are reintegrated. (Simpson has some interesting comments on the similarity between Genius' and Pandarus' roles here, who both instruct in the art of love and offer remedies against its inevitable delusions, like the praeceptor amoris of the "Ars amatoria" and "Remedium amoris.") The turning point occurs at the opening of Book 7, when Genius, producing stories from "the treasury of the imagination" (p. 339), is suddenly governed by "rational desire, and not by sexual desire alone" (ibid.). Book 7 is dominated by the tale of Lucrece, which exposes "the political motives and consequences of cupidinous rapacity. . . . [Aruns'] sexual and military activities . . . become indistinguishable. The world of elegy has been brought into direct contact and identity with the political world that it replicates. There can be no escape from politics, since the psyche itself constitutes a 'political' arena" (ibid.). Genius' very telling of the tale, however, "affirms the possibility of psychic reintegration, whereby the imagination, personified by Genius, operates as a mediator between abstract reasoning and sensual desire. The very possibility of the Lucrece story, told as an exemplum against tyranny in sexual and political practice, itself testifies to the possibility of an imaginative remembrance of stories that is not driven by concupiscent desire; an alternative, fully ethical and political exercise of the imagination is possible. The poem as a whole is a fable of the psyche, in which the relations of the soul mirror the ideal practice of (Gowerian) politics, whereby the abstract principle of the law, the king, has commerce with the body politic by the mediation of counselors (or Parliament) capable of imaginative apprehension. The poem does register the capacity to escape from to escape from Cupid's jurisdiction, and to return to the political discourse of the prologue. The return to the public world is, however, profoundly reformist" (p. 340). None of these possibilities, Simpson suggests, particularly the critique of absolutism, was possible under the much more oppressive discursive conditions of the 1530's and 1540's. This is not an essay that is adequately represented in an abstract, and it well deserves to be considered in its entirety. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 19.1] 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 Breaking the Vacuum: Ricardian and Henrician Ovidianism. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Schutz, Andrea Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Published Schutz, Andrea. "Absent and Present Images: Mirrors and Mirroring in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Chaucer Review 34 (1999), pp. 107-134. ISSN 0009-2002 Review Gower is "fascinated by the individual's reaction to things seen---particularly the self seen in a mirror---as much as he is concerned by the results of those reactions." The tales of CA, moreover, are "a series of mirrors by means of which Amans must examine himself" (both quotations on p. 107). Schutz is concerned with the analogy between these two processes, and she discovers that Gower represents the process of Amans' approach to self-understanding not only through his reactions to Genius' lessons but also through the transformations in the use of mirror imagery in four of Genius' tales, all in Book 1. The "sins of sight" constitute an important "preamble" to Book 1. The lover's sight of his beloved is linked to the painfulness of his experience of love. At the same time, Love is portrayed as blind, and thus both as arbitrary and as beyond the lover's control. The mirror imposes a different order on sight: it "throws the viewer back on himself: one must take responsibility for both the act of seeing and the state of being seen" (p. 109). The first two tales that Schutz examines, on Acteon and Medusa, are from the "preamble." Each is characterized by an "absent" mirror. Unlike his Ovidian counterpart, Acteon never has the moment of self-realization that occurs when he sees his transformed image in a pool of water: he is simply punished for his willful voyeurism (by means of Diana's sight). The absence of his self-reflection compels some sort of reflection from the reader, but none is yet forthcoming from Amans. In the tale of Perseus, Gower deletes the hero's use of the reflection in his shield as a way of avoiding looking directly upon the Gorgons: he simply does not gaze upon them at all. His "wisdom and prouesse mark him off from both Acteon and Amans: "Acteon takes too much heed of the world, Amans not enough; Perseus knows when to look and how to understand" (p. 113). The two tales are "mirrors" for one another, reinforcing the way in which each becomes a "mirror" for Amans. Amans, however, neither identifies with Perseus nor fully distinguishes himself from him: the honesty of his reaction marks a step forward in his "cure," and results in an alteration in the appearance of mirrors in the tales. Both "The Trump of Death" and the tale of Narcissus are concerned with recognition and reflections of self. The king in the first of these sees his own reflection in the faces of the old beggars. It is of course a reflection transformed: not apparent to others, it opens up a whole series of reflections of the spiritual in the worldly in the tale. Amans does not get the point, and Genius responds with the tale in which a youth falls in love with his own reflection. Narcissus turns out to be very much like Amans. Narcissus' "real sin is his folly of loving what does not love him. . . . This of course is Amans' problem, too. He is making a fool of himself over a woman who apparently cannot stand him" (p. 118). Only in Gower's version, moreover, does Narcissus believe that he sees a nymph, suggesting both the impossibility of his own self-knowledge and the way in which Amans images a lady who is actually a reflection of himself. The tale thus also offers a lesson on the ambiguity of images and of the need for interpretation. Amans is prevented from understanding fully what he might learn about himself because of the obstinacy of his will. At the end, however, he is given a direct glimpse into the mirror of self-awareness and he learns the truth about himself that eludes Acteon, the King of Hungary's brother, and Narcissus. One must have some obvious reservations about a study of CA that skips over Books II-VII. In its obsession with mirrors it is also a bit dizzying, very much a hall of mirrors itself in which it is difficult to hold any image clearly in view. This is a nonetheless both a fascinating and a challenging study. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 19.1] 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/. 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 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource Absent and Present Images: Mirrors and Mirroring in John Gower's Confessio Amantis. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Grinnell, Natalie Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review As background to her discussion of Gower's version of the story, Grinnell surveys the transformations of Medea's character in western literature, identifying three major strands. In the Metamorphoses and in the "De Mulieribus Claris," she is the cruel monster, the "bloodthirsty emblem of female anarchy" (p. 70) and "the embodiment of a terror of female power" (p. 72). In the Heroides and in LGW, on the other hand, she is the innocent victim of love, with a resulting flattening of her character. "These poems, on the surface sympathetic to Medea's plight as a jilted lover, produce such sympathy by presenting her as mentally weak and emotionally unstable, a victim who lashes out with rhetoric and violence, rather than carefully plotted revenge" (p. 72). Despite the title of his work, Chaucer is clearly more interested in Jason, and his Medea is hardly distinguishable from his other "heroines." The third alternative is to "transcend the monster/victim dichotomy" (p. 74) by presenting both aspects of Medea's character. The model is set by Euripides, whose chorus "consistently reflects her experiences, her anger and her pain, without compromising the horror of her acts" (p. 74). This is also the route followed by Gower: in contrast to all other medieval authors, he too "attempts to unify Medea's character without suppressing any part of her story" (p. 74) and "restores Medea to the complex character of Greek tradition" (p. 70). In the tale itself, her "contradictory nature [is] emphasized rather than suppressed" (p. 75). She is shy and blushes in Jason's presence, but she also takes action to achieve her desire; she mixes emotion and reason; and even her modesty, in refusing to take credit for Jason's feat, highlights her power, for the populace in the tale is unable to believe that Jason acted without supernatural aid. "This combination of courtliness and power in the figure of Medea is enhanced," Grinnell asserts, "by the tale's complex links to the rest of the Confessio" (p. 76). At this point the reviewer must admit that he doesn't follow the transition. Grinnell has some interesting connections to draw between the tale and other parts of the poem, and while they make the tale more interesting, it is not entirely clear in each case how they contribute to the characterization of Medea. Jason's broken oath, for instance, is not merely an example of perjury; it recalls the series of violated oaths and covenants in the poem's Prologue and its theme of "division": the "faithlessness and resulting violence [in the tale] is part of a pattern which encloses the fate of humanity" (p. 77). Jason and Medea's mutual falling in love is linked to the theme of the "misdirected gaze" which is emphasized in particular in the opening tales in Book 1, and it confirms the pattern of "an inevitable metamorphosis from vision to desire to violence" (p. 79). Jason's choice of Hercules as his confidante is ironic because of all of the ways in which the tale echoes some of the cruelest episodes in his legend. And Medea's ascent to Minerva's court in heaven at the end of the tale recalls a passage in the description of the pagan gods in Book 5 which renders her triumph somewhat ambivalent. (Grinnell seems to have misread the passage in 5.1460-64 as the description of a statue; it is actually an account of the "patron deities" of the different parts of the body.) Medea's complex nature embodies "the internal division of the human soul, reflected on a macrocosmic scale by the corruption and death of the temporal world," Grinnell concludes (p. 81). But Medea does not achieve transcendence, a destiny reserved for the two male interlocutors of the dialogue frame, with whose salvation rather than with the that of the female characters in the tales the poem is centrally concerned. [PN. Copyight The John Gower Society. JGN 19.1] Published Grinnell, Natalie. "Medea's Humanity and John Gower's Romance." Medieval Perspectives 14 (1999), pp. 70-83. ISSN 1057-5367 Dublin Core The Dublin 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 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Title A name given to the resource Medea's Humanity and John Gower's Romance. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 Emmerson, Richard K. Published Emmerson, Richard K.. "Reading Gower in a Manuscript Culture: Latin and English in Illustrated Manuscripts of the Confessio Amantis." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21 (1999), pp. 143-186. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review Macaulay's edition of CA, however useful for the study of the text of the poem, "masks the complexity of the manuscript presentation of the text and thus . . . the variety of ways in which Gower was received by his contemporaries and later-fifteenth-century readers" (p. 146). Emmerson sets out to remedy this fault by studying the manuscripts more closely, to see particularly how they "encouraged different readings of the 'Confessio Amantis' and different representations of Gower as auctor" (p. 147). He focuses on two aspects of their layout: their arrangement of the Latin apparatus that accompanies the English text and their placement of the first two illuminations. In the first part of his essay he summarizes recent studies of the functions of the Latin apparatus, in five categories, adding the running titles and table of contents to the four categories described by Pearsall (1989). The manuscripts differ in the placement of the passages that Macaulay called "Latin summaries" and that Emmerson refers to as "Latin prose commentary," some placing them in the margin, some in the text column, and some omitting them altogether; and in the color of the ink (red or black) used for the apparatus generally. In the table at the end of his essay, Emmerson identifies the relevant features of each of the twenty illuminated manuscripts of the poem. He notes that one color ink is generally chosen for all of the Latin throughout and he observes that the placement of the "commentary" varies according to recension. He postulates two large groups: the "revised first recension," "second-recension," and "third recension" copies place the Latin commentary in the margins and write all Latin in black; the "unrevised" and "intermediate first recension" copies plus some "transitional" copies of the "second recension" place the commentary in the text column and present the Latin in red. The manuscripts also fall into two groups according to the placement of the two introductory miniatures, though rather less perfectly. There are two versions of the miniature of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, one showing just the statue (which occurs only in copies of the "unrevised" version of the "first recension") and the more familiar one showing Nebuchadnezzar himself in bed which appears in all other copies and which must therefore represent the "original design" (p. 167). The manuscripts of the "third recension" uniformly place the miniature at the beginning of the Prologue, while most "first recension" copies reduce it in size and place it later in the text, near the beginning of the account of the dream. (The "second recension" is mixed.) Similarly, the illumination showing Amans kneeling before Genius appears at the beginning of Book 1 in all copies of "recension three,," while it is placed near line 1:202 in the copies of "recension one." From this variety of forms, Emmerson argues, we can deduce the different ways in which Gower's text was received by its earliest readers. The earliest illustrated manuscripts, he argues, were intended for "aural reception" and for public reading: the text column contains only the portions that would be read aloud (including the English poem, of course, but also the Latin epigrams), while the commentary and other apparatus, which was not meant to be performed, was relegated to the margins for the "prelector's" use alone. The large initial miniatures, moreover, "could be shown to the audience at the beginning of a reading" (p. 175), and would serve to introduce the two major themes of the poem. Later copies suggest that aural reception continued into the mid-fifteenth century, but that there were two other forms of reception as well. The copies in which the Latin has disappeared suggest that CA "was read as an essentially English collection of tales" (p. 176), while the "first recension" copies in which the Latin is written in red and the commentary moved into the text column present Gower as "a highly Latinate poet, . . . a scholarly protohumanist" (p. 177). Emmerson concludes his essay with an examination of the two most fully illustrated copies of the poem. One emphasizes the English character of the poem, he argues, and the other represents the culmination of the presentation of Gower as a protohumanist. Emmerson presents a great deal of information about the manuscripts of CA in accessible form; the table at the end is particularly helpful, as far as it goes. He also provides nine very useful photographs illustrating the variety of manuscript presentations of the poem. In other respects, however, this essay an exasperating mix of weakly supported propositions and missed opportunities. Why, for instance, is the table showing the arrangement of the Latin text limited to the illuminated copies of the poem? To be fair, Emmerson refers to the non-illuminated copies in his discussion but for most he relied upon Macaulay's descriptions (see note 43) rather than examining them personally, which not only diminishes his credence but also draws attention to the fact that most of the information that he presents is already available in other forms. In his attempt to organize the manuscripts into groups, Emmerson passes over a great many of the details of presentation of individual copies--the fact that in Bodley 902, for instance (which provides his figure 1), the scribe has written not just most of the commentary but also some of the Latin verses in the margin. He is also less than compelling in his presentation of his views of the relations among the different versions of the poem. He claims at the beginning of his essay (p. 145) that he retains Macaulay's classification of the manuscripts into "recensions" only as a "useful organizational tool," but it becomes clear that he has also silently adopted all of Macaulay's views on the development of the text. On page 178, for instance, he refers to a manuscript that Macaulay identified as "unrevised" as containing "the very first version of the Confessio," though in the very same sentence he goes on to quote from an essay by the reviewer, the main point of which is that this was not the first version at all but a product of scribal corruption. He comes close to the same conclusion himself when he notes that the same group of manuscripts do not seem to contain the "original" version of the illustration of Nebuchadnezzar, but he doesn't observe the contradiction. Similarly, he adopts Macaulay's view that Fairfax represents Gower's "final" intention for his poem (pp. 152 and 170), but the only evidence that he presents for this conclusion is that others have defended it. As for his argument that the early copies of CA were intended for "aural reception," the best that can be said is that it is purely speculative. We have no other evidence of Gower's poem being read aloud, particularly not in the court; each of the features that Emmerson points to could easily have some other explanation; and Emmerson makes no effort to compare the manuscripts that he refers to to contemporary copies of other works, either those that we know were read aloud or those that we know weren't. This essay will be widely read because of its location, but it needs to be used with a great deal of caution. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 19.1.] 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 Reading Gower in a Manuscript Culture: Latin and English in Illustrated Manuscripts of the Confessio Amantis. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Fredell offers a subtle and intriguing argument that links the textual tradition of CA, its reception in the early years of the fifteenth century, its illumination, and modern issues of interpretation. The earliest deluxe MSS of the poem all contain what Fredell refers to as the "Henrician" version, with the revised dedication and epilogue. (He groups together here the copies that Macaulay labeled as recensions "two" and "three.") In most of these MSS, the Prologue is headed by the miniature depicting Nebuchadnezzar and the statue that he sees in his dream. The deluxe MSS of the presumably earlier "Ricardian" version of the poem ("recension one") appear somewhat later; in these, the Nebuchadnezzar miniature has been moved to a place later in the Prologue, closer to Gower's reference to the episode in the text. In most of these, moreover, Nebuchadnezzar himself no longer appears, and the miniature depicts only the statue. That the Ricardian version of CA should still be copied after Richard's death is puzzling enough; that three copies of this version should actually have been owned by sons of Henry IV is even more puzzling. But Fredell suggests that the Lancastrians might have had reason for preferring the earlier version of the poem. Where the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream appears first, he claims, it serves not only as a Biblical model for the type of vision experienced by Amans, but also as an exemplar of kingship. Nebuchadnezzar, here, is "a royal type of tyranny, madness, and desperate penitence after a fall" (p.63); and the miniature directs the reader's attention to the ways in which the entire poem can be read as a "penitential mirror for princes" (p. 63). Such a view of CA, severely moral and intended for the instruction of kings, is also reflected in the revisions that Gower made for the Henrician version of the poem, with its reminders of the failings of King Richard that brought about his fall and that resulted in the rededication to his successor. In the later manuscripts, the miniature, placed later in the Prologue, no longer functions as a frontispiece to the entire work. When Nebuchadnezzar himself is removed, moreover, the emphasis is shifted from the instruction of the king to the content of the dream, in which the statue functions as a morally neutral figure for impersonal Fortune. The poem, as well as the image itself, is freed not only from an instructional frame but also from its association with the historical context of Henry's usurpation. Such a view would have been preferable to the Lancastrians, Fredell argues, because by the early years of the fifteenth century, the "sterner [revised, 'Henrician'] version might be unflatteringly applied to them also, a sword of moral judgment that could cut two ways" (p. 69). The alternative, "humanist" reading, which emphasizes the "'literary' rewards of recreation and wisdom" over "the mirror for princes frame and moral absolutism" (p. 70), is also the one that is more congenial to many, though not all, modern readers of Gower's poem. In support of his argument, Fredell cites other evidence that by the early fifteenth century even Richard himself was seen as an icon of mutable fortune rather than as the deserving victim of his own crimes. Fredell also invokes the history of the same image in the MSS of Machaut's Remède de Fortune; and at the end of his essay, reproduces and describes the principal examples of the miniature in the MSS of CA. Fredell's essay is well documented and thought-provoking, but it argues for more than can be accepted without reservation. His fundamental premise, that the Nebuchadnezzar frontispiece, which illustrates his dream rather than his later madness, invokes an exemplar of kingship that determines a reading context for the entire poem, is not supported by his own account of how diversely the story of Nebuchadnezzar was read in the Middle Ages. It is also undermined by the example of the Remède. In the earliest MS of Machaut's poem, Nebuchadnezzar appears in the illustration with the statue of his dream, but in later copies only the statue appears because, Fredell suggests, the "fall of princes" motif is of no relevance to the poem's central theme. Fine, but that does not explain why Nebuchadnezzar is present in the first place. The example indicates that he could appear even when the "fall of princes" was not a central concern, an analogy that could easily extend to his appearances in CA. There are many other quibbles one might make (readers should make careful use of Fredell's notes, which qualify some of the assertions on which his argument is based), but this essay deserves serious consideration, if only because of the broad range of materials and methods that the author brings to bear in support of his conclusions. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 18.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Fredell, Joel Published Fredell, Joel. "Reading the Dream Miniature in the Confessio Amantis." Medievalia et Humanistica 22 (1995), pp. 61-93. ISSN 0076-6127 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Reading the Dream Miniature in the Confessio Amantis. 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 "A generation before the war at Troy, king Adrastos led an ill-fated expedition against Thebes. One of his commanders, Capaneus, died so spectacularly that he was virtually guaranteed a lasting place in the myth. He boasted that he would take Thebes whether the gods willed it or not and was subsequently struck from the city's wall by a lightning bolt from Zeus. Despite this simple narrative Capaneus' character is handled in a variety of ways. As would be expected he is at times portrayed as a villain. Thus in Aeschylus' "Septem," Euripides' "Phoenissae," and Statius' "Thebaid," he is an impious, vicious, threatening, and boastful character who is finally punished at Thebes. This portrayal, however, was not the only possibility in handling his character. In Euripides' "Suppliants," Capaneus is held up as a model citizen whose moderate life and tragic downfall should serve as a lesson to others. The earliest artistic depictions of Capaneus show a similar divergence in characterization. An artist could emphasize the villainy of the hero by including elements like a ladder to scale the Theban wall, a torch to burn the town, a lightning bolt to imply his punishment, or conversely portray him as a vulnerable youth struck down suddenly in war. Christian writers of the Medieval period take these lines of development further. Gower presents him as a warning against excessive pride, one of the seven deadly sins, and Dante lets him rage in hell against God under a continuous rain of lightning. In both the French "Le Roman de Thèbes" and Lydgate's "Siege of Thebes" the hero is a noble and beloved knight who, while dying at Thebes, lives long enough to take part in the later Athenian attack on the city." [JGN 25.2] Author/Editor Author/Editor Nau, Robert Published Nau, Robert. "Capaneus: Homer to Lydgate." PhD thesis, McMaster University (Canada), 2005. 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 Capaneus: Homer to Lydgate 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 Yeager, R.F Published Yeager, R.F. "Chaucer's 'To His Purse': Begging, or Begging Off?" Viator 36 (2005), pp. 373-414. ISSN 0083-5897 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations In Praise of Peace Minor Latin Poetry Biography of Gower Cronica Tripertita Review Yeager uses both Gower's and Christine de Pisan's relations with the newly crowned King Henry IV to help set the context for a re-examination of the occasion and purpose of Chaucer's "To His Purse." Though she evidently did respond to Henry's solicitation of her by presenting him with a poem (perhaps the Epistre d'Othéa), Christine provides the model for one not all that impressed with Henry and, once her son was free from his captivity, not feeling any special obligation to support the king's pretensions. Gower, of course, enthusiastically subscribed to the Lancastrian justification of Henry's usurpation, producing within a short period of time the short Latin poems of the so-called "laureate group," the Latin Cronica Tripertita, and the Middle English "In Praise of Peace." Yeager revisits the chronology of these in order to determine which might have been known to Chaucer. "Rex Celi Deus," he suggests, probably predates Henry's coronation; "O recolende" is the most likely candidate for presentation at the time of the coronation; and "H. aquile pullus," with its reference to the oil used to sanctify the coronation, probably dates from shortly later. The Cronica Tripertita, with its allusion to Richard II's death, cannot have been finished before the early months of 1400. The Cronica, which Yeager describes as "the Latin Gower at nearly highest volume" (404), serves the propaganda needs that the shorter Latin poems, in their brevity and learnedness, do not, and it also sets into relief Chaucer's very different response to the appeal for justification from the king. Early in his essay, Yeager argues that "To His Purse" could well have been written with Richard in mind rather than Henry, and he chooses 1393 and 1398 as times when poet might have had special need to remind the king of his obligations. He also argues that there is no evidence that Chaucer had unusual pecuniary needs in 1400, and that examined closely, the envoy that Chaucer provided in addressing the poem to Henry could be read as undermining rather than supporting the publicly offered justification of Henry's right to the throne. In that respect, Chaucer's omission of any reference to the will of God in Henry's accession, very much a part of Gower's claims for the king, takes on a special significance. But Chaucer's poem is also much shorter and clearly less serious than both Christine's and Gower's offerings, and in Yeager's view, that fact in itself constitutes a near dismissal: "Under pressure to write something for Henry, [Chaucer's] decision to send a 'begging poem' was a literary choice with a political motive, both courageous and not a little reckless, in either case heavily ironic: he would present the usurper with his desired 'new song,' written 'al of the new jest,' just as desired – in a minstrel's voice, as verses on command, in exchange for pay" (412). And while not naming God, the last two lines of the envoy may in fact invoke him, Yeager suggests, if we read them as a separate sentence, not addressed to the king but to Chaucer's hopes from a different, higher source: "And ye that mowen alle oure harmes amende, / Have mynde upon my supplicacion." [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 25.2] 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 Chaucer's 'To His Purse': Begging, or Begging Off? 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Nolan, Maura Published Nolan, Maura. "Lydgate's Literary History: Chaucer, Gower, and Canacee." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 27 (2005), pp. 59-92. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Influence and Later Allusion Review Lydgate greatly expanded the story of Canacee that Laurent de Premierfait inserted into his translation of Boccaccio's "De Casibus virorum illustrium" when he translated Laurent's work in his "Fall of Princes," and his English rendering contains clear evidence of his consciousness of and his debt to both Gower's and Chaucer's very different representations of the heroine in Book III of "Confessio Amantis" and in "Man of Law's Tale." With this as her starting point, Nolan investigates the conflicting genres, discourses, and views of Fortune that Lydgate has drawn upon and set into opposition in his tale. Gower is a "lurking presence" throughout Book I of Lydgate's poem (62). In his version of the story, Gower accentuates the pathos of the heroine's plight, an example that Lydgate follows despite the moral bearings of his own work, particularly as he adopted the image of the baby bathing in his mother's blood. But in shifting the emphasis from the narrative back to the letter that Canacee writes, Lydgate also excises most of Gower's concern with the force of "kynde" together with his interest in the philosophical and moral issues that it poses and his inquiry into the causes of the heroine's predicament. Lydgate thus sets into bold opposition "didactic exemplarity and amorous complaint" (67), and "while the reader of the 'Confessio Amantis' is gradually being led through a complex process of education, in which he or she is asked to ponder some very fine points of moral theology (the role of "kynde," for example), the reader of the 'Fall of Princes' is merely stymied by the apparent contradiction between the logic of virtue that guides the enterprise as a whole (sin causes falls) and the affective principle of pity that the story of Canacee so insistently enforces" (68). In the rest of this rich and challenging essay, Nolan explores the significance to the "Fall of Princes" as a whole of the "incoherencies and incompatibilities" (78) that Lydgate creates. Let one passage stand both for the scope of her argument and the nature of her conclusions: "These two notions of Fortune (the idea of a remediable negative force and an efficacious poetry versus the fearsome thought of arbitrary contingency and the uselessness of speech) are the twin poles between which Lydgate suspends the Canacee story. Jumbled together in this episode we find precisely these opposing epistemologies, the former a model in which the world is saturated with a single meaning and the latter a paradigm that evacuates the human world of all significance and silences all speech. History is both subject to logic--available to hermeneutics--and utterly excessive and irrational at the same time. Lydgate knows this, in the sense that he knows that his sources fundamentally conflict--that Ovid, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Gower each propose a different solution to the basic problem of finding meaning in history. His instinctive response to these conflicts--a response utterly characteristic of him--is to seek some kind of synthesis. Ultimately, Canacee and her son represent ideal subjects for the kind of 'vernacular philosophy' that permeates the 'Fall of Princes,' precisely because they expose the structural contradictions at work in the historical models for human life in the world that Lydgate inherited from his predecessors" (88). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 25.2.] 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 Lydgate's Literary History: Chaucer, Gower, and Canacee 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Nicholson, Peter Published Nicholson, Peter. "Love and Ethics in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005 ISBN 9780472115129 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review Peter Nicholson's "Love and Ethics in Gower's Confessio Amantis," weighing in at close to 450 pages, mightily qualifies as what would once have been deemed "a hefty tome." Especially given the reluctance these days of publishers to commit to books of such size, it says much about the risen status of Gower studies internationally that the University of Michigan Press backed this capacious project. But like all fine books, which are themselves their own best recommendation, Nicholson's study needs no external hand-up from a burgeoning critical interest in Gower. "Love and Ethics in Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'" speaks up for itself, confidently, often eloquently, thoroughly justifying its substantial heft. As Nicholson is clearly aware, however, his book will discomfit readers of a certain stripe, who will find it composed in a style of "forty years ago," as he himself (somewhat self-deprecatingly) has it in his preface (p. v). Apparently he means by this "close reading," and what he has produced is ample demonstration of why such an "old fashioned" methodology may still be the most effective approach to the multilayered CA, which as a work has largely eluded critical approaches "plus au courant." Taking as his starting points the notions first, that, to avoid the errors of the three blind Brahmins describing an elephant, the poem needs to be addressed not in parts but whole; and second that a half-century of focus on the CA as a political document is quite enough, Nicholson sets out to read Gower's poem from beginning to end, and "to argue that the principal subject of the Confessio Amantis is human love; that Amans is a quite ordinary mortal with his share of virtues as well as sins; that the issue in the poem is not whether Amans should be in love but rather how he might become a more virtuous lover; and most importantly of all, that the moral structure of the poem is the fundamental harmony rather than opposition between God's ethical demands and love's" (p. vi). A fairly ho-hum list, at first glance, and thus initially it seems odd that these are dubbed "rather large claims" (p. vi). Who doubts Amans' piebald mortality, or that a "Lover's Confession" would be about love? The validity of Nicholson's estimation--and the originality of his effort--very quickly become clear, however. Nicholson begins with an extraordinary opening chapter describing Machaut's influence on the CA which is sufficiently perceptive about the "dits amoreux" as to be independently publishable, and will no doubt be mined assiduously by "romanistes." Ultimately, however, his claims commit him to reading the CA not (as has been so often the case) primarily through the lens of its sources but, rather, transparently, one might say--altogether on its own terms. Hardly a novel notion in another field, but something Gower criticism has commonly avoided, given the magnitude of the task. The preference has been to read selectively, extrapolating conclusions about the full poem from this example or that, in accord with the fashion of adapting the text to theory. Nicholson, on the contrary, seeks to account for every tale, as well as most of the dialogue between Amans, Genius, and Venus, pressing his case that only such slow, digestive thoroughness adequately delivers Gower's thoughtful construction in its varietous dimensions. In the process he develops claims--all challenging, and for the most part well supported--that Gower organizes the eight Books of the CA in different ways, each requiring a separate imaginative response; that frequently individual tales are set out in clusters, informing and answering each other; that Books VII and VIII should be read more or less as a unit. This last idea, as Nicholson notes, he derives from a passing observation of John H. Fisher's which the latter failed to develop, and it may serve as a weather-vane for how Nicholson himself uses sources. More than a decade as bibliographer for the John Gower Society has given Nicholson a familiarity with the full range of Gower scholarship that is almost unique, and his own study, unsurprisingly, benefits immensely from his years of concentrated reading. Of those several claims named above, Nicholson's treatment of two undoubtedly will prove exceptionally influential. One is his treatment of Amans. Nicholson strives to view Gower's figure of the Lover with heretofore-unknown acceptance, crossing frequently into empathy. The result is an Amans no longer the familiar monochrome mouthpiece in a two-dimensional frame, but rather a figure altogether larger, a full-blooded person sprung free of the confines of allegory, engaged in an (ultimately bootless) affair of the heart in complex and legitimate ways. As Nicholson sees it, we are meant to care about Amans--a consideration itself permitting something larger, an in-depth evaluation of Gower as maker of fictions. (Indeed, "Love and Ethics in Gower's Confessio Amantis" frequently has this quality of Russian dolls, as each discovery progressively reveals another.) Yet it is when Nicholson convincingly integrates Amans' feelings, as microcosm, with Gower's over-arching enterprise, to demonstrate in the macrocosm the multivalent power of love as it emanates from God and governs every facet of society and creation, that his work moves to a level above, and provides rich, original insight. Nicholson's is thus a more coherent, and consequently more satisfying, understanding of the CA and of Gower's art therein than any yet offered. Not that his will be the last word: there are various moments, particularly in his discussion of the controversial excursus on the pagan gods in Book V (and Gower's attitudes toward classical material generally), and his account of the inspiration and plan for Book VII, where the argument seems driven forward rather too quickly. From time to time, too, in making the case for Gower's use of Machaut Nicholson forgets how combinative Gower was in his use of sources, especially in the CA. And one might offer as well, without summoning revenants, that there are political messages strewn here and there amid the "locus amoenus." But such concerns have their airings elsewhere, and in no way detract from Nicholson's achievement. Clearly, not unlike Fisher's seminal "John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer" (1964) in this as in much else throughout, "Love and Ethics in Gower's Confessio Amantis" is a book that will engage and enable Gower scholarship for a generation at least. [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 25.2] 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 Love and Ethics in Gower's Confessio Amantis. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available University of Michigan 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 Book PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Nowlin, Steele Published Nowlin, Steele. "Narratives of Incest and Incestuous Narratives: Memory, Process, and the Confessio Amantis's 'Middel Weie'." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 35 (2005), pp. 217-244. ISSN 1082-9636 Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review For Nowlin, "To read Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' is to read about incest. It is also to read incestuously" (p. 217). What Nowlin means by "incest" is transparent, given that the focus of his study is the "Tale of Apollonius;" but his notion of "reading incestuously" is a bit more complicated. Essentially he argues that Gower's description of "Apollonius" as "a long process" (Bk. VIII, 269)--the only use of the word in the CA--should be taken seriously, as a calculated announcement of a literary practice applicable not only to the tale but to the CA itself, and to Gower's entire poetic project as well. "Put most simply, that project is to repair the discord of human history manifested as late-fourteenth-century England's particular cultural and historical moment," using "a memorial process through which narratives of the past are redistributed through a poetics of the 'middel weie' in order to educate readers on how to use knowledge to improve themselves and their society (Pro. 17)" (p. 217). The "most insidious threat" to this poetic project is "the destructive consumption of memory" which can be defined, according to its retrogressive character, as incestuous, and facilitative of "incestuous reading." To counter this destructive process, Gower depends on Augustine's argument in the "Confessions" (II.23) against the existence of either the future or the past, but for the present only, on the grounds that neither the future, which has yet to be, nor the past, which exists only in the present, in memory, has real-time existence. Hence, according to Nowlin, Gower attempts to retell old stories, in order to "restructure the present through the reconfiguration of the past" (p. 238). By this means, although we are forced to "read incestuously," Gower's focus on "process" "transforms that act of incestuous, consumptive reading into something generative and productive" (p. 238). Particularly interesting is Nowlin's extended reading of Antiochus' riddle (pp. 224 ff.) as a prime example of incestuous narrative on several levels. One caveat regarding the notes: Nowlin has some difficulty keeping straight work belonging to Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (identified correctly in n. 16, as the author of "Betwene Ernest and Game": The Literary Artistry of the Confessio Amantis) and Kurt Olsson (author of "John Gower and the Structures of Conversion," as in n. 10); eventually all "Olsens" blend to "Olssons" (viz., nos. 34, 40). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. 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 Narratives of Incest and Incestuous Narratives: Memory, Process, and the Confessio Amantis's 'Middel Weie' 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Machan, Tim William Published Machan, Tim William. "Medieval Multilingualism and Gower's Literary Practice." Studies in Philology 103 (2006), pp. 1-25. Gower Subject Language and Word Studies Review Machan---one of the most interesting and profound speculators about late medieval English sociolinguistics now writing---argues for "the strategic character of [Gower's] multilingualism, the way in which, within the grammatical and pragmatic constraints of a language, purpose can determine usage Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Medieval Multilingualism and Gower's Literary Practice Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006 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 Giancarlo, Matthew Published Giancarlo, Matthew. "The Septvauns Affair, Purchase and Parliament in John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme." Viator 36 (2005), pp. 435-464. ISSN 0083-5897 Gower Subject Biography of Gower Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Review Giancarlo summarizes his article thus: "The analysis focuses on three points: 1) the poet's involvement in a parliamentary law dispute about land purchasing in 1365-66; 2) the parliamentary allegory (the 'parliament of the devils' in Part I), extensive legal diction, and the condemnation of 'purchasing' in the poem; 3) the significance these elements have for understanding the Mirour as a complex social allegory. This article argues that Gower's poetical ambivalence about 'the common voice' is reflected in the work's parliamentary form, its powerful but also subtly defensive condemnation of legal manipulation, and in the problems of representation--both political and artistic--that these elements raise. This analysis thus reevaluates the Mirour as an important early work in Gower's oeuvre demonstrating engagement with many of the same issues arising in his later verse." Even were it a lesser project, Giancarlo's study would be notable, examinations of the Mirour on any subject whatever being so rare on the ground. As it is, he makes a convincing claim for Gower's purposeful application of contemporary parliamentary practices to the Mirour, in the description of the "devil's parliament" in Part I. Particularly intriguing is the reminder thus indirectly raised that, as early as 1365, Gower was a close observer of parliamentary action, so evident from his negotiation of the land transaction involving the Septvauns heir---a transaction in which Gower alone of those involved seems to have emerged with his purchase (and probably his reputation, Macaulay's grumbling notwithstanding) intact. Giancarlo's focus on legal language laced into the sections of the poem he studies is very helpful, too. He teases out words otherwise overlooked as specialized vocabulary of the trade, thereby restoring a sense of how such passages would have been received by Gower's fourteenth-century readership. His sense of Gower's "poetical ambivalence about the 'common voice'" is a little less convincing, if only because, his basis for argument being relatively narrow slices of so vast a poem, it can seem less readily descriptive of the work entire. Too, Giancarlo (reasonably enough) assumes a straightforward, beginning-to-completion program for the writing of the Mirour, when indeed there may have been a lengthy hiatus between the earlier and final sections.] [RFY. Copyright The John Gower Society. 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 The Septvauns Affair, Purchase and Parliament in John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Meecham-Jones, Simon Published Meecham-Jones, Simon. "Questioning Romance: Amadas and Ydoine in Gower's Confessio Amantis." Parergon 17 (2000), pp. 35-49. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review Mid-way through his confession of his "Delicacy" in love, Amans describes to Genius how his ear is fed with "redinge of romance / Of Ydoine and of Amadas, / That whilom weren in mi cas" (6.878-80). The allusion itself, Meecham-Jones observes, might possibly be a parody of a conventional stylistic device of contemporary romance: both "Emare" and "Sir Degrevant" (both of which, he points out, may be too late to have been available to Gower) contain similar passing references to the story of Amadas. Meecham-Jones is more interested, however, in the purposes of Gower's evocation of this particular story. It stands out as one of the very few references to popular romance in the poem, and the characters that Amans names are notably excluded from the ranks of the famous lovers who appear in Amans' vision in Book 8. The implicit critique of the romance genre, Meecham-Jones asserts, goes beyond treating the reading of such books as an instance of Delicacy. Amans claims to seek consolation in characters whose condition resembles his own, but Amans does not get the happy ending that the romance provides. The difference in outcomes for Amadas and Amans reflects the difference between two different moral visions. The romance is structured to demonstrate "the benign justice of divine providence" (p. 47), while Gower's moral analysis is based on "the congruence of act and consequence" (p. 46). "The operation of divine grace is necessarily absented from the exemplary discourse of Gower's work . . . precisely because the opacity (to human reason) of the workings of grace is incompatible with the schematic and designedly practical dissection or moral possibility Gower attempts in the Confessio. . . . The story of Amadas is briefly introduced less to disparage its ethical stance than to assist Gower in defining, by contrary example, the particular moral stance of the Confessio as an exploration of human conduct in the fallen temporal sphere" (p. 46). It is at this point that the essay becomes interesting. Meecham-Jones makes a bit too much of the uniqueness of Amans' allusion, passing over the references, for instance, to both Tristram and Lancelot elsewhere in the poem, including the vision in Book 8, where Meecham-Jones states that Gower deliberately omits any reference to the romance form (p. 41). The difference between a theology of grace and a morality of rewards and punishments would seem to be rather central, however. The question is how this distinction operates in the poem, and Meecham-Jones may define Gower's position a bit too starkly. There are, after all, other very significant tales in which grace and Providence play a major role. Meecham-Jones dismisses "Apollonius of Tyre" from his discussion by classing it with "Florent" as "social narratives above all," quoting Dimmick (see JGN 19, no. 2, p. 9), and he does not even mention "Constance." Perhaps there is a bit more to say about this issue which Meecham-Jones poses so provocatively. [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 Questioning Romance: Amadas and Ydoine in Gower's Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Both the Spanish translation of CA and the newly rediscovered Portuguese translation on which it was based are marked, Balestrini points out, by a fidelity to the original that corresponds better to modern expectations of a translator than it is characteristic of the practices of most medieval authors who reworked texts from other languages. The comparison of the translators' work with Gower's has nonetheless allowed earlier scholars to note a number of adjustments and alterations made for the benefit of the readers of a culture different from that of the English author. Balestrini builds upon these earlier studies in examining the effects of changing Gower's verse into prose, which she links to a shift from public to private reading in which the English lagged behind their continental contemporaries. Restricting herself to the CA Prologue, she points to the provision of chapter numbers (together with titles derived from the Latin summaries that were originally placed in the margins of Gower's text) and to a number of small revisions--some instances of amplification, the fuller provision of information that is only implicit in Gower's verse, the elimination of redundancy and other evidence of ornament, the insertion of conjunctions, the straightening out of the word order, and the omission of generic citations of authority such as "if that ye rede"--as evidence of the economy and efficiency that made prose more appealing than verse to late medieval readers. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 21.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Balestrini, María Cristina Published Balestrini, María Cristina. "A Propósito del Prólogo de la Confesión Del Amante." Letras 40-41 (2000), pp. 100-106. ISSN 0378-4878 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 A Propósito del Prólogo de la Confesión Del Amante Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Astell, Ann W Published Astell, Ann W. "Political Allegory in Late Medieval England." Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Cronica Tripertita Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review Astell devotes a chapter entitled "Gower's Arion and 'Cithero'? to the Confessio Amantis in this collection of studies of the (largely covert) political allegory in late medieval English poetry. She re-examines some familiar passages in the Prologue and Book 7 and comes up with some subtle if not entirely surprising new readings. In her discussion of the Prologue she begins by re-opening the question of the dating of the different versions of the poem. She dismisses the allusions to 1390 that occur in some late glosses as irrelevant to the date of composition of the poem, and she argues instead that the reference to Arion that occurs in all versions of the Prologue must have been written after the Christmas season of 1391/92, when Thomas Walsingham records that a 10-foot long dolphin swam up the Thames as far as London Bridge. Drawing in part from the reviewer's essay in the 1984 Mediaevalia, she goes on to argue that except for the two lines of Latin that occur at the very end of Book 8 in some MSS ("Derbeie Comiti, recolunt quem laude periti, . . .), all of the references to Richard's cousin Henry in the English text and the accompanying Latin glosses that are preserved in MSS of the "second? and "third? recensions must have been added after Henry became king in 1399. The copy that Gower presented to Henry in 1393 must therefore have been a "first recension? copy, and the two-line Latin presentation, like the allusion to Chaucer that is also preserved in this version, indicates that Gower from the very beginning was thinking of a wider audience for his poem than just Richard alone. Arion also figures largely in Astell's interpretation of the political content of this version. She adopts the view (presented most forcefully by R.F. Yeager) that Arion is meant as a figure for the poet himself. She notes, however, the omission of any reference to boats and sea-faring in the passage on Arion, one of the most traditional parts of the story as it is preserved, for instance, in Gower's likely source in Ovid's Fasti. The lack is supplied, she argues, by the account of Gower boarding Richard's barge at the very beginning of the Prologue; and if we read the two passages together in light of Ovid's version in the Fasti, then Richard implicitly becomes the captain of the pirate ship who captures Arion and who is the first audience of his song. "Interpreted allegorically and intertextually,? she concludes, the entire episode "is much less complimentary to the king than it seems at first sight? (p. 81). The two lines of Latin at the end of Book 8 indicate that "Henry of Derby stands, dolphin-like, in the second tier of Gower's original intended audience? of this version. "From him the poet seeks rescue for himself and the realm, should Richard prove to be a pirate after all and inattentive to the song of 'an other such as Arion' (Prologue, l. 1054)? (83). In her examination of Gower's discussion of Rhetoric in Book 7, Astell emphasizes the similarity between the account of the trial of the Catalinian conspirators and Gower's depiction of the Merciless Parliament in the Cronica Tripertita. Gower's dismisses Caesar just as in the later work he condemns those who pleaded for mercy for the presumed traitors, and he implicitly identifies himself with Cicero "in his plainspoken opposition to the abuses of licentious nobles and riotous peasants? (84). Gower thus "aligned his poetic and rhetorical project with the reformist project of the Lords Appellant? (89), and the entire discussion provides an effective prelude to the outline of the five points of Policy, where Gower offers his own advice to the young king. Chief among the virtues that he advocates is Truth, and Astell sees here an allusion to the Appellants' requirement that Richard retake his oath as king. In her conclusion, Astell argues that Gower splits the figure of Cicero in two: he "embraces the political stance of 'Cithero,' while rejecting the ornate doctrine of 'Tullius,' . . . opting to speak in a low style, using 'rude wordes and . . . pleyne; (VIII.3067*)? (91). His message is wisdom only for the wise, however, and it will be hidden from those for whom the poem is seen merely as entertainment. (It appears that Astell fails to note that paradox here of Gower's use of plain words to conceal.) Gower provides a clue on how to read his poem, however, in the four opening tales, in the section on the "Sins of the Eyes and Ears,? which provide lessons on how to pierce through appearances in order to find the "message veiled behind the obvious one? (92). In her other chapters Astell consider John Ball and Piers Plowman, LGW, MkT, NPT, SGGK, and Malory's Morte Darthur. There is a useful review by Candace Barrington in SAC 22 (2000): 448-51. [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 Political Allegory in Late Medieval England. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Cornell University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book 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 is a study of the dream poem in the context of medieval ritual, exploring the interaction between poetry and London civic ceremony in late medieval England. In it I examine the poetic use of visions of civic life to illustrate and negotiate an individual's place in their community, the way that late medieval poetry used elements of civic ceremony to critique London life. Each chapter of my thesis presents the work of a medieval author – Langland's Piers Plowman; Chaucer's Legend of Good Women; Gower's Confessio Amantis, Mirour de l'Omme and Vox Clamantis; Lydgate's Troy Book, Siege of Thebes, Fall of Princes, and coronation verses – in close comparison with a different type of London performance recorded in church processionals and civic records, reading the language of each ceremonial text side by side with poetry and examining the form of literary texts alongside performances. . . . In the second chapter [I discuss] Gower's poetic visions of public chastisement, alienation and exile, which I argue echoed the ridings to Newgate used to punish both perceived sin within the community and civil disobedience. . . . In each case, I attempt to establish the thesis that by using medieval ceremony to re-imagine city life each of these authors negotiated an individual relationship with civic order and communal harmony. Author/Editor Author/Editor Horsley, Katharine Frances Published Horsley, Katharine Frances. "Poetic visions of London Civic Ceremony, 1360-1440." PhD thesis, Harvard University, 2004. Gower Subject Vox Clamantis Confessio Amantis Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poetic visions of London Civic Ceremony, 1360-1440 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 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 Another item for the State-of-Gower's-Reputation department: Burrow gives a sympathetic two pages to Gower (compared to nine and a half for Chaucer, including illustrations) in this popular account of English literary history (pp. 49-50). After a brief biographical summary, he compares CA to LGW as a collection of tales and uses "Acteon" as an example of Gower's adaptations from Ovid. "The finest moments in the poem," however, "come in its closing pages," when Amans discovers that "the renunciation of love can be for him no more--and no less--than an acceptance of the natural course of things." Review by Tony Tanner in TLS, 17 July 1987, p. 763. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 6.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Burrow, J. A. Published Burrow, J. A. "Old and Middle English." In Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Ed. Pat Rogers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 1-87. Reprinted without illustrations in Pat Rogers, ed. An Outline of English Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 1-57. 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 Old and Middle English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Oxford University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987 1992 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 Watt offers a reading of Gower's "Apollonius of Tyre" informed by psychoanalysis, but rather rather than simply reading the events in the tale according to a Freudian script, she also uses a comparison to other versions of the story in order to demonstrate the ways in which Gower consciously reshaped the narrative. The mixture of methodologies is a bit dizzying. Statements such as this one, "But in a sense Amans is guilty of incest in so far as he seems to be engaged in an oedipal struggle with his own incestuous parents, Venus and Cupid, the Queen and King of Love" (182), which is offered without any further support, stand alongside the careful comparison of texts, for instance in Watt's demonstration that his tale of Apollonius Gower places much less emphasis on lineage and genealogy than any of the analogues (183-84). The juxtaposition of the two different sorts of arguments evidently presumes that Gower himself was as conscious of the psychoanalytical dimensions of his text as Watt is. Watt's purpose is to use the conclusions that she draws on Gower's depiction of the characters in assessing the way in which Gower intended to offer instruction through the tale to Richard II. "The political replaces the genealogical" in Gower's story, she asserts; "there exists a connection between the poem's construction of gender and sexuality and its political concerns and historical contexts" (185). But where María Bullón-Fernández, making a similar claim, sees the connection between Antiochus' incest and Richard's tyrannical rule, Watt claims that Gower also offers his criticism of Richard through Apollonius, who is "implicated in the crime of incest and tainted by homosexuality" and who "is culpable of misusing his knowledge and power" (185). In making her argument, she has a great many specific observations to make about the tale and about the poem, only some of which can be noted here. The impenetrability of the riddle in Gower's version, she observes, "is in itself a clue to its meaning," for in its "grammatical indeterminacy" it "reveals itself to be concerned with something that is unethical and corrupt" (187). But while "with its references to the devouring of the mother's flesh, [Gower's version of the riddle] expresses the speaker's repressed desire to devour or to marry/to sleep with his own mother" (188), mother figures are more active in Gower's tale, even in their absence, than in other versions of the story, beginning with Antiochus' wife. The daughters are imperiled not just by the sexual incontinence of their fathers but by "the absence or cruelty of the maternal figures" (189). "In Gower's tale, then, the role of women as wives and mothers is crucial to the proper functioning of the household" (191). Antiochus' riddle also expresses his repressed desire for his father, and "just as the infantile desire for the mother is displaced onto the daughter, so the fixation of the father reemerges in a search for the son" (192). The riddle thus "draws our attention to the homosociality, or what Luce Iragaray calls the hom(m)o-sexuality, of patriarchal society" (ibid.). Thus Antiochus allows Apollonius to escape, but as Apollonius continues to flee after he is already safe, he reveals that he himself "has become obsessed with the father figure" (194). As Freud suggested, such "father-fixations . . . resulted in the feminization of the son," as manifested by Apollonius' mastery of rhetoric, "traditionally associated with femininity and effeminacy," by his failure to kill Antiochus, and by "the passive role he plays in his relationship with his future wife" (194-95). Apollonius also becomes implicated in Antiochus' crime by this failure to reveal it, and though he has no conscious incestuous desire for his own daughter, Gower's depiction of his reunion with Thaise heightens the resemblance between Apollonius and Antiochus. In depicting his female characters, Gower uses the story "to examine and to attempt to unravel female sexuality and desire" (199). The conclusion reestablishes "normative male control of female desire," but along the way the sufferings of Thaise and her mother are an extension of those of Antiochus' daughter, and their "resurrections" represent her "posthumous redemption" (202). That Gower intended the tale as a comment on Richard II is indicated by the political purposes manifest throughout CA and by the historical reports of Richard's disturbed personality, a portrait that is "to some extent confirmed by Gower's complex representations of kingship" in this tale (203), which reveal "his cynicism about Richard II's conduct and rule" (205). Antiochus's behavior, of course, may "be intended as a warning to Richard II against arrogant behavior and arbitrary rule" (205). "The implicit praise of Artestrathes's wife," moreover, "might be read as a celebration of the mediatory role of Anne of Bohemia" (205-6), while "the resurrection of Apollonius's wife and daughter," representing the king's subjects and his country, "may also mark the (albeit temporary) restoration of the power of the council's to curb the king's will" (206), though "the recontainment of female sexuality" suggests that "Gower's political vision is ultimately a conservative one" and he does not advocate the overthrow of the king (206-7). Apollonius is a figure for the king both in his flaws and in the fact that he does not learn very much during the course of the tale. Amans too fails to learn, but "unlike Apollonius, he does not see the fulfillment of his desires either. . . . In the final analysis, Amans's misdirected desire reflects the king's unchecked will and it is perhaps his failure in love which looks most like a prognostication of the usurpation of Richard II's throne. At the same time, Gower's decision, not only to sign his own narrative, but to identify himself with Amans, and thus implicitly with Richard, may indicate his personal frustration with and sense of failure about his role, not as poet of love, but as political advisor" (207-8). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 22.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Watt, Diane Published Watt, Diane. "Oedipus, Apollonius, and Richard II: Sex and Politics in Book 8 of John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 24 (2002), pp. 180-208. 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 Oedipus, Apollonius, and Richard II: Sex and Politics in Book 8 of John Gower's Confessio Amantis 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 Author/Editor Author/Editor Mooney, Linne R Published Mooney, Linne R. "A New Scribe of Chaucer and Gower." Journal of the Early Book Society 7 (2004), pp. 131-140. ISSN 1525-6790 Gower Subject Manuscripts and Textual Studies Review Mooney adds a fifth scribe to the list of those who are known to have worked on MSS of both Chaucer's and Gower's works. His was the sole hand, Mooney argues, in both Harley 1758 (CT) and London, Society of Antiquaries 134 (Macaulay's "X"), which contains Lydgate's "Life of Our Lady," Hoccleve's "Regement of Princes," a portion of Walton's verse translation of Boethius, and, in Macaulay's classification, an "intermediate" version of the "first recension" of CA. The scribe worked in the mid-15th century. On the basis of spelling, Mooney traces his origin to the area between Ludlow and Halesowen, in a line almost directly west of modern Birmingham, consistent with the earliest evidence of the ownership of the two books. Other contemporary MSS of CT with West Midlands affiliations indicate that this was "not a particularly unusual site for copying of these texts" (137). Both books are of high quality, on vellum, with extensive decoration. Harley 1758 has been heavily corrected, while Macaulay notes that the textual affiliations of CA in "X" change in mid-copy, indicating access to more than a single exemplar of each work. [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 A New Scribe of Chaucer and Gower Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Review Describes and transcribes the fragmentary portion of Confessio Amantis 4.2351-2520 found in the "Takamiya fragment," once a part of Huntington Library MS EL 26.A.17, folios 68 and 69. Comments briefly on the puzzling nature of the removal of seventeen leaves from the Huntington, perhaps for various reasons. [Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 22.1.] Author/Editor Author/Editor Edwards, A. S. G. Takamiya, Toshiyuki Published Edwards, A. S. G. and Takamiya, Toshiyuki. "New Fragment of Gower's Confessio Amantis." Modern Language Review 96 (2001), pp. 931-936. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Manuscripts and Textual Studies Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Fragment of Gower's Confessio Amantis 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 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 White, Hugh Published White, Hugh. "Nature, Sex, and Goodness in a Medieval Literary Tradition." Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review White's central concern, he writes, in his introduction to this new study of Nature in late medieval literature, "is with such overlapping questions as whether that provision with which human beings are endowed by nature tends toward their good, whether the natural circumstances of human beings conduce to their happiness, whether by nature human beings are inclined to the good, whether the law of nature directs human beings to the good; in short, is Nature benign and moral?" (5); and the answer that he reaches for each of these questions for the majority of the authors that he examines, to a greater or lesser degree, is "no," in contrast to the more optimistic view that is as he notes "often . . . taken for granted by modern students of medieval literature" (2). His greatest interest is in Gower and Chaucer, who occupy the last two chapters of his book. The first five chapters survey a very broad range of earlier texts that define the tradition of thinking on Nature on which the two English poets drew. Chapter 1 surveys "academic writings (philosophical, theological, legal, medical) from antiquity to the fifteenth century" (8). In these, Nature is commonly understood to promote virtue and to provide moral guidance for humans in association with Reason. Ulpian's linking of natural law with animals rather than humans, however, raised semantic and ontological issues regarding both "nature" and what is "natural" in human beings (33) which opened the way for a tendency to see the natural as non-rational. "Whilst it is true that an association between nature and reason is widespread and that nature is frequently seen as good--the natural defining a proper state of being for all things, and human beings possessing natural desires towards God and the good--it is also the case that a far from negligible strain in medieval thought associates the natural with the animal and the irrational and recognizes that there is a sense of nature in which nature can move to the bad" (44). Even the "natural" in this sense, however, was superior to the "unnatural," introducing what White calls a "three-tier" morality: "there is the natural and the right, the natural but wrong, and the unnatural, which is, just in virtue of being unnatural, wrong" (46). White finds a "basic consonance" (48) with the concept of the natural in academic writing among the authors of the Middle English devotional and moral works that he examines in chapter 2. Drawing upon an impressive array of sources, he demonstrates that "kynde" was often associated with the good – both with "natural reason" and with Biblical morality--but that especially in matters of sexual conduct, nature might "fall short of the highest virtue" (66) and might even have to be restrained. "There seems to be some reluctance among moralists and homiletic writers to allow that sin can be the result of natural pressures, but the explicit rejection of this idea suggests that it was in fact current" (66), leaving unresolved the issues of whether humans are fundamentally rational or fundamentally irrational according to nature. Chapter 3 treats the allegorized or personified "Natura vicaria Dei" in works by Boethius, Bernardus Silvestris, Alan of Lille, and Johannes de Hauvilla, all of whom present a creative Nature working in harmony with the divine and in most cases explicitly on the side of virtue. But even in these authors, White argues, the "ambition for the good does not deny a problematic aspect to the natural" (108). Particularly in the "De Planctu Naturae" and "Anticlaudianus" of Alan of Lille, Nature's reach is limited, especially in comparison to the power of grace, and her efforts to pass responsibility for the corruption of the system that she instituted onto Venus and others are not fully persuasive. "Her associations with the body and sex are already obscuring her moral glory, and the damaging effects of those associations will be allowed greater play as the Nature tradition develops" (109). Jean de Meun is the central figure in White's argument, making explicit the moral ambiguity of Nature that is implicit among his predecessors and providing the point of reference for all writers who follow. In chapter 4, White examines the radically different presentation of Nature in the "Roman de la Rose," separated from Reason and aligned more closely with Venus, expressing "a sense of the inseparability of the orthodoxly acceptable end of procreation from the orthodoxly dubious principle of sexual pleasure. Sex is to be regarded as natural even though it does not consciously aim at procreation" (133). This association, he suggests, "in a scenario very possibly designed to contrast with the rebellion of Venus from Nature in the 'De Planctu', seems to be commenting on Alan's treatment of the two figures. The Nature of the 'De Planctu' seeks to detach herself from Venus and thereby from responsibility for the seamier side of sexual behaviour. Jean suggests that this is an evasion . . . . And Jean's arrangement of the action of his poem dramatizes how the natural drive towards procreation may indeed go forward through channels less than pure" (133-34). Jean thus lets "the morally problematic association of nature with sex . . . run loose" and presents "a Nature who condones and encourages behaviour orthodoxly regarded as sinful" (139). The French writers who followed Jean, whom White examines in another impressive list of citations in chapter 5, all respond to the "Roman" in some way. Jean Gerson tries to resurrect the morally orthodox Nature and to defend her from what he sees as Jean's defamation of her; other writers present a Nature that explicitly leads humans to lechery; while a third group seeks to "accommodate two irreconcilable conceptions" of Nature (159), one adhering to Reason and one promoting illicit pleasure, attempting to preserve the notion that what is natural must be good but never satisfactorily resolving her relation to Amours and Venus or managing to countenance legitimate sex under Nature without also countenancing the immoral. White devotes the longest chapter in his book to Gower. He describes how Gower stands as heir to each of these conflicting conceptions of Nature, but Gower's deepest and most sincerely held view, he argues, is reflected in what he sees as the deliberate failure of the attempt to reach a reconciliation. Nature, he points out first of all, is most often linked to the intuitive, the instinctual, and the pre-rational in CA, differentiated both from Reason and from Grace, and aligned with the body rather than the soul, a version of Nature that is not far removed from Ulpian's. As such, Nature may be in harmony with Reason and moral law, as the instinctive emotion that binds families together, for instance, or as that which abhors killing and war. White also points to passages that suggest that "the idea of Nature is for Gower the focus for a vision of the healing of the fundamental division between soul and body and hence a talismanic concept" (187); and indeed "the general strategy of 'Confessio Amantis'"--as evidenced in Gower's deployment of the scheme of the Seven Deadly Sins and in the dual allegiance professed by Genius--"seems to be designed with a view to entertaining claims about the unifiability of aspects of the human being which at first sight might seem irreconcilable" (187-88). But the "idea of the goodness of natural human instinct coexists with darker suggestions about nature-as-impulse" (188), and it is "with sex that Nature's capacity to stimulate vice, to go against reason and to invite pardon for it, becomes clearly apparent" (189). The tales of "Iphis and Iante" and "Canace and Machaire" both suggest--despite some apparent efforts to redeem the natural, especially in the latter--that Nature presides "over an unconditioned sexual instinct which is capable of expressing itself in behavior contrary to reason and also to the positive human law which demands moral action and which yet cannot adequately constrain the natural impulses which may impel people away from moral behavior" (196). Even the passages in Book 7 that speak of "modifying" the laws of nature with reason "cut two ways" in White's view and reveal an underlying anxiety: "they suggest that an accommodation of the natural sexual urge can be made, but they point to the necessity of restraint of the natural. Nature may be a domesticable threat to morality, but it is a threat nevertheless" (201). And the tale of "Tobias and Sara" with which Book 7 concludes shows that restraint can be achieved, but that "in the normal course of events" restraint is quite unlikely (202). "That sharp sense of the antagonism between love on the one hand and reason and morality on the other and a consciousness of the unmanageability of the natural sexual impulses are what dominate the ending" to the poem (205). "Because love and reason are incompatible, . . . Genius requires Amans to give up love" (ibid.). Amans' very inability to choose--and the fact the he obtains his release only through the agency of Venus and Cupid--suggest how little love is governable by reason. Amans' petition acknowledges Nature's power over him and the overcoming of his reason; and Venus' final remarks suggest that Amans remains at risk from Nature despite the restoration of his reason. Despite all of the poem's optimistic gestures, therefore, division finally triumphs over harmony. Where at the beginning of CA Genius affirms a dual allegiance, at the end he denies his mistress and assumes a role different from any earlier Genius figure, as "the poem's initial generosity towards love" gives way to "an ascetic vision which focuses on the unsatisfactoriness of human sexual love, its irreconcilability with the claims of morality, and which sees clearly the need to turn to a love beyond the world" (213). And while both the length and structure of the poem express the poet's wish for reconciliation or at least for some "ultimately benign purpose in the ineluctable and apparently sometimes baneful influence of the sexual impulse on human beings" (218), Gower renounces this purpose as he resumes his own proper identity in the closing lines. In his final chapter White takes up Chaucer. In the broad variety of his works Chaucer holds a less consistent view of Nature than Gower does. There are several passages (e.g. in Mel and ParsT) in which Nature is invoked without qualification as providing a moral norm. More characteristically, however, White finds that Chaucer expresses a disillusionment with so morally optimistic a view. Such a response is visible in his reworking of a passage in Book 3, Meter 2 of "De Consolatione Philosophiae," in which Lady Philosophy proclaims a natural inclination to the good, in MkT 160-82 and SqT 607-20, where what is natural for both animals and humans turns out to be considerably less benign. It is also apparent in other poems--White cites passages from BD, PF, PhysT, and T&C--in which Chaucer first presents a favorable view of Nature which he then compels us to view it more skeptically, ending "with a vision of humanity let down, or even victimized, by Nature" (254). Chaucer's view of the relation of the natural and the human, he concludes, is "stalked by despair" (257), while Gower, being less committed to his role as a poet of love, "can walk away from that collision [between reason and morality] relatively unharmed" (ibid.). This is a fine book, because of its clarity, because of its comprehensiveness, and because of its alertness to the variety of manifestations that Nature assumes not only in medieval literature generally--for which it deserves to take its place alongside Teresa Tinkle's recent book on "Medieval Venuses and Cupids" (see JGN 16, no. 2)--but also in individual works, an alertness that is particularly evident in the illuminating sensitivity to nuance that White brings to bear upon many of the key passages that he examines. His central point--that Nature is not as beneficent as many have assumed--may be taken as proved, but what is most remarkable about this book is the great complexity of the figure that it offers in place of our earlier, simpler view. One must also be impressed with the complexity and the subtlety of some of the strategies with which the authors that White examines attempted to deal with Nature and her role. As some of the quotations above might perhaps suggest, White lays considerable stress upon the morally negative aspect of Nature for the purpose of his argument, sometimes implying either that this is the more correct view of Nature or that it is the one that the authors that he examines wished to affirm. For more than one of the authors that followed Jean de Meun, however, among whom we may wish to include Gower, it appears that Nature might represent a situation of moral ambiguity that might be addressed and even satisfactorily resolved on the moral plane without necessarily reaching a consistent and unitive view of the figure of Nature herself. There is still room for discussion, in other words, of precisely how Nature functions within the moral argument that some of these works present, but that discussion will be considerably aided by the care and precision with which White has presented his examination of how she is defined. This is now the most complete and most reliable source of information on Nature's appearance in the literary tradition that White examines, and it provides essential background to the study of Gower. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 21.1.] 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 Nature, Sex, and Goodness in a Medieval Literary Tradition. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Oxford University Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Palmer, James Milton Published Palmer, James Milton. "Narratives of Healing: Emotion, Medicine, Metaphor, and Late-medieval Poetry and Prose (John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, Diego de San Pedro, Spain)." PhD thesis, Purdue University, 2002. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review "As Barbara Rosenwein has noted, very little attention has been given to the history of emotions other than love. Posing the question "What is an emotion? Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Narratives of Healing: Emotion, Medicine, Metaphor, and Late-medieval Poetry and Prose (John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, Diego de San Pedro, Spain) 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 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 Renda, Patricia A. Published Renda, Patricia A.. "Mythopoesis and Ideology in Late Medieval and Early Modern Versions of 'Lucrece' and 'Philomela'." PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2005. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review "To investigate how late medieval writers transmit ideology in their revisions of popular mythical narratives, I contrast vernacular reductions of Lucrece and Philomela with their classical sources to argue that the narratives perform specific ideological work in fourteenth-century Britain. The Lucrece narrative – involving the rape and suicide of a Roman matron and the subsequent transformation of government from monarchy to republic – envisions female political power, paradoxically insisting upon female self-destruction as that power. Employing intertextual analyses for different versions of the narrative, I further describe the modifications Lucrece's characterization undergoes that reveal an evolving patriarchal ideology, one that normalizes female self-destruction as response to victimization. . . . In addressing versions of Lucrece by Livy, Ovid, Augustine, Chaucer, Gower, and Shakespeare and versions of Philomela by Ovid, Chrétien de Troyes, Chaucer, and Gower, I have found that structures of ideology transmission reveal important relationships among several key developments, literary and social as well as political and national: namely, among the spread of literacy, the poetic use of vernacular English, and British national identity. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mythopoesis and Ideology in Late Medieval and Early Modern Versions of 'Lucrece' and 'Philomela' 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 Lightsey, Robert Scott Published Lightsey, Robert Scott. "Monstrous Anxieties: Reading Mirabilia in Chaucer and His Contemporaries (Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Sir John Mandeville)." PhD thesis, University of Delaware, 2001. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review "My dissertation explores the depiction of marvels and wonders in fourteenth-century English literature. I argue that late medieval representations of mirabilia -- such as Chaucer's flying Horse of Brass, the monstrous body of King Alexander, and Eastern wonders like Mandeville's automated peacocks -- reflect the preliminary stages of what would become in the seventeenth century a clockwork universe. . . . Chapter four expands on the notion of man's transgressive technological progress through a reading of John Gower's use of marvels and hybrid monsters in the story of Alexander the Great, representations of whom reflect the uncertain new position of man in the universal machine. . . . Throughout the study I examine how traditional marvel-stories were rationalized in transmission, in effect becoming readings of older marvel-texts that render former wonders into mundane, self-consciously portrayed hybrids of myth and science. My object is to balance the metaphor and the reality of the clockwork universe of the later fourteenth century in order to reveal new avenues for the consideration of the period's vital and lively intercourse with mirabilia." [JGN 21.1] 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 Monstrous Anxieties: Reading Mirabilia in Chaucer and His Contemporaries (Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Sir John Mandeville) 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 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 Virtually all of Bennett's chapter on Gower (pp. 407-29) is devoted to "Confessio Amantis," and it is for the most part an expanded version of the introduction to his "Selections from John Gower" (1968): one will find very much the same characterizations of Gower's relationship with Chaucer, of his narrative style, of his poetic achievement, of his general themes, and of the roles of the various characters in his poem, fleshed out with considerably more explanation and illustration. Bennett's Gower is a skilled poet and storyteller who is underestimated because of the unobtrusiveness of his art and a man of broad sympathy and insight, characteristics that Bennett illustrates with discussions of "Ceix and Alcione" and "Florent" and with brief quotations from other tales. Gower's most important model and predecessor is Ovid, not only for the tales that he borrowed but also for the topical references and philosophical statements with which his poem begins and ends. His confession frame derives from "Roman de la Rose" and "De Planctu Naturae" but it would also have been seen as a literary adaptation of sacramental penance, and the "therapeutic" function of the sacrament provided the "point of contact" to the treatment of love as a sickness in contemporary love-literature. The general theme of the poem is love: Bennett is not persuaded by attempts to see it as an expression of political or social doctrine, nor is he moved by the efforts to construct a precise moral underpinning for all of the various elements that it contains. Gower's "honeste love" links courtesy, charity, and the practical aims of marriage and the begetting of children. Genius does not represent a single point of view or value but carries out a composite and in some ways ambivalent role. And the unity of the poem is provided loosely by a group of five "distinctly Gowerian" concepts or themes: "Love and Charite as opposed to Lust and Will . . . ; Peace and Rest as opposed to War and Discord; Reason and Wit as against 'unreason'--folly and passion; Nature or Kind, and Mortality; Fortune and Necessity (but with Providence guiding them)" (p. 425). Bennett's view of CA is firmly rooted in a literal reading of Gower's "lessons" but it is also broad and generous and sensitive to the expressive qualities of Gower's verse. Review by A.J. Minnis in TLS, 6 February 1987, p. 140. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society: JGN 6.1] Author/Editor Author/Editor Bennett, J.A.W. Gray, Douglas Published Bennett, J.A.W. and Gray, Douglas. "Middle English Literature." Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986 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 Middle English Literature. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Clarendon Press, Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Type The nature or genre of the resource Book PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Ladd, Roger Alfred Published Ladd, Roger Alfred. "Merchants, Mercantile Satire, and Problems of Estate in Late Medieval English literature (Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Margery Kempe, William Langland)." PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2000. Gower Subject Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis) Review "This dissertation explores the long-overlooked trajectory of merchants through late medieval English literature, and argues that literary treatments of merchants are far more worthy of study than scholars have assumed. I discuss extended conflict between an early clerical ideology rejecting the money economy and the first stages of a guardedly pro-trade ideology. These two incompatible visions of the morality of trade coexist within each of the texts I study, and the continued struggle between these ideologies prevents either from dominating any of these texts. The dissertation begins with three poems that use estates satire: John Gower's "Mirour de l'Omme," William Langland's "Piers Plowman," and Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Gower redirects familiar tropes of antimercantile satire by mixing them with proto-nationalist discourse, but then shifts to guild-specific descriptions of mercantile malpractice in London. Langland expands antimercantilism into his meditation on the paradox of materialism itself, so that Piers Plowman's merchants represent the material economy. The merchants of the Canterbury Tales overlap pro- and antimercantile uses of trade language, and as Chaucer collapses the two meanings of words like "chevisance, Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Merchants, Mercantile Satire, and Problems of Estate in Late Medieval English literature (Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Margery Kempe, William Langland) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Kennedy, Kathleen Erin Published Kennedy, Kathleen Erin. "Maintaining injustice: Literary Representations of the Legal System c. 1400." PhD thesis, Ohio State University, 2004. Open access at https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_olink/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=osu1085059076 (accessed January 22, 2023). Gower Subject Backgrounds and General Criticism Review "Medieval English authors often regard aspects of the legal system to be in conflict with an endemic cultural practice, maintenance. Simply put, maintenance was the payment of a form of salary to a high-level servant by a lord. The salary this servant (or affine) might receive could consist of cash-payments, gifts, or access to lucrative official positions, including the proxy enjoyment of some portion of the lord's judicial rights. The more lavish the assistance, the more the lord honored the retainer. Obviously, the mutual ties of aid and loyalty between a lord and an affine threatened impartial justice at every level, and medieval authors strove both to bring its abuses to light, and to offer alternatives. Each of my chapters sheds light on how late fourteenth-century authors articulated the relationship between different legal institutions and maintenance. . . . John Gower spends a considerable amount of time writing about the legal profession, especially lawyers and other legal officials. I claim that Gower argues that if the king allowed maintenance and other personal considerations to influence his judgement, then legal officials would do the same; moreover, legal officials tarnish the king's reputation since they receive their legal powers by delegation from the king. . . . In sum, late-fourteenth- and early-fifteenth-century authors demonstrated detailed knowledge of the law and used literature as a forum in which to discuss inadequacies of the system. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Maintaining injustice: Literary Representations of the Legal System c. 1400 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 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 McCarthy, Conor Published McCarthy, Conor. "Love and Marriage in the Confessio Amantis." Neophilologus 84 (2000), pp. 485-499. Gower Subject Confessio Amantis Review Under this broad title McCarthy takes up some broad topics indeed: the relation between nature and reason in CA; that nature and background of Genius' ethical counseling; and the value of his recommendation of "honeste love" to a man (1) whose love is identified as sinful, (2) has no prospect of marriage with the woman that he loves, and (3) is revealed at the end to be elderly and impotent anyway. McCarthy does about as well at sorting out the many conflicting statements in the poem on each of these issues as many earlier critics who have gone over the same ground, the most important of whom he cites. He explains how nature might appropriately be governed by reason in the case of man while in other contexts nature might be said to be opposed to reason, a valuable concession to the lack of strictness in some of Gower's most important terms. He resorts nonetheless to blaming Genius for some of the other apparently conflicting advice in the poem, though conceding that his "moral authority," especially suspect at the beginning, improves as the poem goes on, and that he transcends his limitations as priest of Venus in Book 7. Genius' most important advice to Amans, occurring throughout the poem, not just at the end, is his recommendation of "honeste love," which comes to be equated with marriage, the place in which nature is most fully restrained by reason. McCarthy places that advice within the context of medieval discussion of the sacrament of marriage, and concludes from his examination of the different cases presented in the poem, "If Gower condemns extramarital love, he offers marriage primarily as a remedy for lust, as something that can make love honeste, rather than as something good in itself, and even marital intercourse is presented as something potentially sinful" (p. 495). This advice turns out not to apply to Amans, however: because of his age, the only reasonable course for him is to abandon his love entirely. Abstinence such as Genius advocates for Amans is only for the few, McCarthy notes; for the rest, for whom the lengthy argument in the poem is apparently intended, "the best that can be hoped is that they will love in accordance with the natural urge to procreation, and that they will modify that urge by the exercise of reason within lawful marriage" (p. 497). [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 19.2.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Love and Marriage in the Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Type The nature or genre of the resource Article PeerReviewed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gower Collection GowerType Customized Item type for items in the Gower Database Author/Editor Author/Editor Passmore, S. Elizabeth Published Passmore, S. Elizabeth. "Loathly Lady Transformed: A Literary and Cultural Analysis of the Medieval Irish and English Hag-Beauty Tales." PhD thesis, University of Connecticut, 2004. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Confessio Amantis Review "This dissertation examines five extant Middle Irish kingship tales . . . along with four Middle English Loathly Lady tales (Gower's Tale of Florent, Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, and The Marriage of Sir Gawain) to demonstrate their connection through the role of the Loathly Lady as counselor to the male protagonist. The themes of kingship (encompassing all aristocratic leadership) and counsel (focusing on the role of the Loathly Lady as advisor) are viewed through historical and cultural factors in eleventh to twelfth century Ireland and fourteenth to fifteenth century England. . . . Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Loathly Lady Transformed: A Literary and Cultural Analysis of the Medieval Irish and English Hag-Beauty Tales 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 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 Watt, Diane Published Watt, Diane. "Literary Genealogy, Virile Rhetoric, and John Gower's Confessio Amantis." Philological Quarterly 79 (1999), pp. 389-415. Gower Subject Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations Style, Rhetoric, and Versification Confessio Amantis Review "Gower's construction of rhetoric," Watt asserts, referring primarily to the discussion that occupies the middle section of Book 7 but also with a view to the entire poem, "can be seen as both gendered and sexualized, especially when read alongside other classical and medieval discussions of the subject" (p. 393). As Schmitz, Craun, and others have noted, Gower departs from his source in Brunetto Latin's "Tresor" in treating rhetoric as a matter of ethical choice and in emphasizing the virtues of honesty and plainness, but "correct use of language is also gendered as masculine," Watt claims (393), and "the power of speech reaches its true fulfillment in men alone" (394). Gower also rejected Latini's class-based distinction between ordinary language and the eloquence that he associates with true nobility, but Book 7 is nonetheless concerned with the conduct of the king rather than that of ordinary men. Aristotle is quoted as urging truth primarily in kings (7.1731-36), and abuses of language such as flattery and deception are associated throughout the poem with the royal court. Watt sees a direct address to Richard II in these warnings, and more specific allusions to his attachment to Robert de Vere (in Gower's use of "assoted") and to his failure to produce an heir (in the play on "conceive") in 7.2338-43. By means of this collocation "rhetoric, reasonable behaviour, chastity, and the obligation to reproduce are interrelated" (396). Gower makes a tribute to the persuasive powers of rhetoric in 7.1630-40, but his discussion otherwise betrays considerable ambivalence about ornate language, as others have noted. Both Ulysses and Caesar are depicted as either implicitly or explicitly misusing language in order to obscure the truth. Gower's use of the word "colour" with reference to Caesar, like his use elsewhere of "peinte," evokes, furthermore, the condemnation of cosmetics as another form of deceptive covering among both classical and medieval writers and as a form of effeminacy by both Alain de Lille and Jean de Meun. Alain goes furthest in associating abuses of language with moral corruption, using the former as a figure for the latter throughout DPN. "The court satire and other literature of the later Middle Ages likewise reveal a nexus between rhetoric, dissimulation, self-indulgence, and all forms of lust including sodomy" (400). And such "masquerade and effeminacy" (401) was widely identified with Richard II's court. "The conceptual link between false eloquence and sodomy (in its most general sense of non-reproductive sexual intercourse) [thus] indicates that it would be wrong to isolate Gower's discussion of rhetoric from Genius' praise of 'honeste' love and marriage, or from the extended account of chastity as the fifth point of Policy" (401). Gower repeatedly condemns effeminacy. Both Caesar and Ulysses, moreover, are associated with effeminacy in earlier literature. Watt concedes the problem here, and her response is also a justification of her method: "Of course the objection might be made that in his discussion of rhetoric Gower does not actually refer to either Ulysses' womanliness or Caesar's depravity and that therefore, in Confessio, the connection between rhetoric and effeminacy and sodomy is not established, that unlike Dante [in his portrayal of Latini in Inferno 15] Gower does not represent the rhetorician as sodomite. Nonetheless, we cannot isolate the text from its literary and cultural contexts and such connections did exist whether or not Gower and his readers consciously made them" (403). She then goes on the link Gower's ambivalence about rhetoric to his doubts and questions about his own role as poet. In 7.2332-37, she notes (in "second recension" MSS only, not "first recension" as she claims, 403), Gower cites Dante, and identifies himself with the poet who tells the truth but who has less influence over the king than the flatterer does. She sees an attempt to dissociate himself from the misusers of language that he has condemned in Gower's claims in the epilogue to have used no rhetoric (*8.3064) and to have written "with rude wordis and with pleyne" (8.3122). But he has used such rhetoric. Moreover, he has falsified his own appearance in adopting the role of Amans, as the glossator points out in the well-known passage at 1.59-64 mar. "It is manifest throughout Confessio that Gower's double, Amans, is not exempt from charges of insincerity. . . . [And] by the end of the poem Amans has been exposed as a fraud when he beholds himself in the looking glass handed to him by Venus and sees his 'colour fade' (8.2825). . . . Having associated false language with masquerade and effeminacy, Gower (or the figure of the author-narrator) and his double Amans find themselves implicated in these very vices" (406). Watt also sees in the history of the dedications of the poem Gower's efforts to distance himself from the king who was its first sponsor and from "the accusations of incompetence and corruption made during his reign, and thus to preserve his book from moral taint. Indeed, if we connect this elision to Gower's failure to name Latini as the main authority for Book 7, we might be tempted to conclude that the author specifically wanted to avoid the stain of sodomy. At any rate, the Ricardian poet was aware that the writer, like the courtier, was susceptible to charges of effeminacy and degeneracy as he was to those of flattery and hypocrisy, and that not only his success but also his masculinity was contingent on the reputation of his patron" (407). [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 Literary Genealogy, Virile Rhetoric, and John Gower's Confessio Amantis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 Epstein, Robert Published Epstein, Robert. "Literal Opposition: Deconstruction, History, and Lancaster." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 44 (2002), pp. 16-33. Gower Subject Cronica Tripertita Confessio Amantis Review "We should be as studious to historicize deconstruction as we are to deconstruct history," Epstein writes in the conclusion to this essay (30), in which he describes how the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century construction of Lancastrian identity does not conform to postmodern expectation of "an idealized and ahistorical unity" (18). The Lancastrian texts that he examines "evince a unique consciousness of the underlying nature of language" (18) and in them, "identity is represented as relational rather than absolute" (30), being constructed of oppositions and represented "on the typographic level in ways that link the relational nature of identity to the relational nature of language and of all signification" (ibid.). Epstein uses Gower's revision of the dedication of CA, in which Gower "explicitly pitted Henry against his cousin Richard," to illustrate how "the idea of Lancaster . . . originates in opposition" (19). (Such an opposition is more visible, of course, in Macaulay's edition, in which the two passages are juxtaposed, than it would have been in any medieval copy.) He also examines the passage in TC 458-73 in which Gower sets Richard's abuses against Henry' virtues, referring to each only by his initial, "R." and "H.," a feature that is effaced in Stockton's translation. Epstein demonstrates that the lines in question scan only if the letters represent long monosyllables and that they therefore cannot be replaced by the kings' full names. "The text," he points out, "moves towards an originary opposition of signs, arriving ultimately at the level of writing" (22), an effect that is complemented by the punning in line 461, "[H.] Quem deus extollit, et ab R. sua prospera tollit": "the difference between divine favor and damnation is reduced to an arbitrary linguistic coincidence. . . . So, some fifteen years after originally opposing Henry to Richard in the 'Confessio,' Gower is still defining Lancaster through opposition rather than essential unity. Indeed the opposition has become only more central, emphatic, even elemental. It has been filed down to the irreducible basis of opposition in symbolic writing: alphabetical characters" (23). An opposition that is typical, one might add, of the self-conscious verbality of Gower's Latin throughout VC. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society JGN 22.1.] 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 Literal Opposition: Deconstruction, History, and Lancaster 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 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