The Price We Pay for Envy: A Political and Social "Maladie."
- Author/Editor
- RogersCon, Will.
- Title
- The Price We Pay for Envy: A Political and Social "Maladie."
- Published
- Rogers, Will. "The Price We Pay for Envy: A Political and Social 'Maladie'." Accessus 7, no. 1 (2022): n.p.
- Review
- Rogers focuses on "The Travelers and the Angel" from Gower's "Confessio Amantis," suggesting that it is fittingly in Book II of the poem as it deals with the struggle of envy. Using the work of Sianne Ngai--"ugly feelings"--Rogers argues "Envy is not simply a vehicle for decay of the world and community, but also a way to point out how the commons have been fleeced, as public and communal support becomes privatized and income inequity worsens." Rogers explains how envy might be used by us, channeling Gower, to question the increasingly failing social safety net and the growing corporate welfare of twenty-first century life. He then walks us through how he sees Ngai's work applying to Gower, particularly in regard to animal metaphors with a nod to Gower's "Vox Clamantis." Rogers then returns to "The Travelers and the Angel," arguing that "healing for the then-contemporary audience is as much about diagnosis as it is about cure itself." He then adds that, for him, healing in CA is incomplete and that the poem is permeated with a kind of pessimism before turning to claim that "What often seems negative or pessimistic in the 'Confessio' instead signals where healing can begin." Envy, Rogers suggests, is a vehicle to prompt discussion to then prompt healing. Here, Rogers offers his close reading of "The Travelers and the Angel" to illustrate how envy might work productively in the process he has outlined. He concludes that the tale suggests the cure for hurt is not to hurt others, but he also admits that this is not apparently easy. Rogers then returns his analysis to engaging the more recent past and present politics and political discourse of the United States. He offers a model in which envy might "help highlight and address problems which are not seen as harmful in Gower's text," and continues, "Envy, rightly positioned, might be central to healing and hope, a fact unvoiced in the 'Confessio Amantis'." Rogers concludes that envy, like trauma, has its use in our society because, as Gower demonstrates, it might lead us to healing. [JGS. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis