Writing into Hope: Laughter, Sadness, and Healing in John Gower's "Confessio Amantis."
- Author/Editor
- Grinnell, Natalie.
- Title
- Writing into Hope: Laughter, Sadness, and Healing in John Gower's "Confessio Amantis."
- Published
- Grinnell, Natalie. "Writing into Hope: Laughter, Sadness, and Healing in John Gower's Confessio Amantis" Accessus 7, no. 1 (2022): n.p.
- Review
- Grinnell opens her essay with the COVID-19 pandemic in the foreground, advocating for poetry as a healing narrative community. She admits that Gower might be a surprising choice of poet to turn to for levity, but Grinnell contends "that the 'Confessio' does indeed create a space for narrative healing within the acknowledgement of mortality." Grinnell applies the work of Dan P. McAdams on the narrative identity of the self to the CA, claiming that it is applicable due to the way in which Amans constructs himself through stories and personal confession. Grinnell offers close readings that examine how laughter works in the tales, concluding, though, that the CA ultimately fails to produce humor that creates spontaneous joy and laughter. Turning to Book VIII, Grinnell suggests Venus's laughter as a turning point for relief for Amans from the pains of love. She argues, "This ending, in fact, which so compellingly thrusts the narrator away from his obsession and finally restores his reason, is happy in the sense that the character is finally freed from the painful desires of the flesh which have so tormented him." By the end of the poem, Grinnell claims, Amans has achieved a narrative identity that McAdams argues is the foundation to forming the self. She concludes, "[Amans] is healed not just by the removal of love's arrow, but also by becoming both poet and poetry." [JGS. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis