The Vox Revoiced in Gower's "Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia."
- Author/Editor
- Irvin, Matthew W.
- Title
- The Vox Revoiced in Gower's "Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia."
- Published
- Irvin, Matthew W. "The Vox Revoiced in Gower's 'Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia'." In Richard Firth Green and R. F. Yeager, eds. "Of latine and of othire lare": Essays in Honour of David R. Carlson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2022). Pp. 120-38.
- Review
- Irvin subjects Gower's discussion of lollardy which, along with sections on Pride, Lust, and Avarice, comprises one of the four parts of the "Carmen," to intense and careful scrutiny. He takes as his point of departure the many lines "imported" into the "Carmen" from the "Vox Clamantis." While ticking off the several ways Gower's critiques of the church correspond to Wyclif's, Irvin also dismisses the similarities as essentially superficial (121-22). Unlike Wyclif, Gower assigns importance to the rituals and instruction of the church as a form of praxis (135), or "cultus," in Irvin's terms (126-27). For Gower, Irvin argues, unwavering faith--"the seeking of Christ not in knowledge but in prayer" (132)--ranks well above theological understanding, as God's "intentio" is beyond the reach of men (134-36). The essay is unusually rich in its uncovering and application of biblical passages that undergird Gower's polemic. [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Minor Latin Poetry
Vox Clamantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations