The Sea and Medieval English Literature.
- Author/Editor
- Sobecki, Sebastian I.
- Title
- The Sea and Medieval English Literature.
- Published
- Sobecki, Sebastian I. The Sea and Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008. xii, 205 pp.
- Review
- A wide-ranging work tracing the maritime influence on English literary identity from Gildas to Churchill with especial focus on the development of several topoi of the Sea during the Middle Ages. Sobecki centrally "argue[s] that the literary history of the sea in English literature becomes a part of the vernacular discourse of Englishness" (4). The introduction situates Churchill's propaganda speeches of the Second World War as the culmination of "a latent, residual understanding of British identity as insular" (2) from which Sobecki works backward to identify the roots of this relationship in Early and Middle English texts. Chapter 1 begins with a brief history of the Sea in Biblical, Classical, Anglo-Saxon and (to a lesser extent) Celtic traditions. Chapter 2 compares the related topoi of Sea-as-Desert and Sea-as-Forest within the context of the British Isles. Chapter 3 explores the medieval sense of Britain's geographical isolation at the edge of the Sea/known world. Chapter 4 deals with unwanted encounters of sea and shore including shipwreck and invasion. Chapter 5 focuses on English traditions of Jonah, Leviathans, and Christ-figures at sea. Chapter 6 follows the politicization of the Sea and the burgeoning concept of "territorial waters" (140). The epilogue deploys Shakespeare's "Tempest" as an example of the synthesis of these various maritime literary traditions and topoi in its expression of English identity. Of greatest interest to the field of Gower studies will be chapters 2 and 4 in which the author discusses the "Tale of Constance" and "Apollonius of Tyre" of the CA at some length. Sobecki not only captures Gower's engagement with existing English literary traditions of the sea (such as in the topos of the rudderless craft), but also identifies Gower's own innovations, specifically Gower's departure from his sources in his characterization of the sea as a personification of Fortune in CA's treatment of the Apollonius narrative (114-16) and in the poet's insistence on the materiality of the sea (117). Sobecki goes on to argue that even "The Tempest" reveals a Gowerian influence in its storms and seascapes (163). The connection between Gower and the sea was first identified by Macaulay, who noted that Gower's description of seascapes and storms were so "vivid and true" they demanded "more than a mere literary acquaintance with such things." Though not primarily about John Gower, "The Sea and Medieval English Literature" goes some way to contextualize Gower's particular genius within the indigenous maritime literary traditions of the British Isles and provides a necessary foundation for future research into the poet's vision of the sea. [CJK. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 2008
- Gower Subjects
- Backgrounds and General Criticism
Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Influence and Later Allusion