On the Oxymora in John Gower's "Est amor in glosa."
- Author/Editor
- Weiskott, Eric.
- Title
- On the Oxymora in John Gower's "Est amor in glosa."
- Published
- Weiskott, Eric. "On the Oxymora in John Gower's 'Est amor in glosa'." Notes and Queries 69 (2022): 273-77.
- Review
- Weiskott is among Gower's most careful modern readers, and one of a still smaller number who pay attention to the poet's metrics, no less in Latin than in Middle English. His consideration of Gower's oxymora in "Est amor in glosa" harnesses both capabilities for a clear, and fructive, purpose. By plotting (275) precisely what and where Gower borrowed from the "Vox Clamantis" (as is generally recognized), and also from "De planctu Naturae" (not so often), Weiskott illuminates Gower's originality, the difficult challenge he set himself in this expression of late Latin poetic stylistics (As Weiskott observes, "'Est amor in glosa' tries out three different varieties of Latin love poetry and excels at all three" [277]), and in the process arrives at both an explanation of the poem's machinery, that subtly comments "on literary language itself" (276), and a sensitive appreciation of its "distinctive mouthfeel or sensation on the tongue": "lovely and formidable" (276) . . . its juxtaposition of love and death also forms a poignant comment on Gower's self-presentation . . . as 'old in years' ['vetus annorum'] (277)." [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Minor Latin Poetry
Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations