Mary Magdalene as New Custance?: 'The Woman Cast Adrift' in the Digby Mary Magdalene.

Author/Editor
Findon, Joanne.

Title
Mary Magdalene as New Custance?: 'The Woman Cast Adrift' in the Digby Mary Magdalene.

Published
Findon, Joanne. "Mary Magdalene as New Custance?: 'The Woman Cast Adrift' in the Digby Mary Magdalene." English Studies in Canada 32.4 (2006): 25-50.

Review
This article is not primarily focused on Gower, but as it addresses the Digby Mary Magedalene play largely in terms of the trope of "the woman cast adrift" (25), it may well be of interest to Gower scholars working on the "Tale of Constance" (Confessio Amantis, II.587-1612). Findon contextualizes the play as an East Anglian work--not necessarily relevant for Gower's work. Still, the recurring story of Constance (or Custance for Chaucer) was certainly widely known, and helps ground a useful contrast between the saint in the play and other women "cast adrift." Findon finds the incorporation of this trope (or motif) useful in that that it provides a context for variations on the Mary Magdalene story that appear in the Digby play--the playwright's "alterations to Mary's story seem deliberately to enhance her status as a female hero through her connections with Chaucer's Custance, with Trivet and Gower's Constance, and with Emaré--virtuous but largely passive romance women who are 'cast adrift'" (29). She contrasts Gower's and the other versions of this sort of heroine primarily with Mary in an analysis of the play, noting that women in this trope are generally "cast adrift by evil forces beyond [their] control" (32). Mary's travels in the play are planned by her enemies, as are those of Constance or the more secular romance heroine Emaré. Findon provides a useful analysis of the drifting woman tradition, noting that "in medieval literature in general, a woman traveling alone in a ship is often in the midst of a deep personal crisis" (31), for example, and often the voyage is meant to be fatal to the woman (32). She also points out that "in both classical and medieval literature, female protagonists who undertake such journeys are rare, and those who are active during the course of their journeys are even more rare: this is what male heroes do" (34). Thus, as the Digby playwright adapts this trope to Mary Magdalene's story: "Mary Magdalene recalls the Constance figures yet does not share their lack of personal power" (36). Overall, Gower here provides a counterpoint for Findon's insightful reading of the Digby play. This article is most likely to be useful to Gower scholars working with this particular literary trope or with Constance; its comparison of the different analogues, though focused around the Digby play, is thorough and detailed, and many of Findon's insights may inflect how one looks at the Constance narrative, also, in implicit contrast, the Apollonius of Tyre story (42). [RAL. Copyrigtht. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]

Date
2006

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Influence and Later Allusion