Goods and the Good in "Confessio Amantis."
- Author/Editor
- Bullón-Fernández, María.
- Title
- Goods and the Good in "Confessio Amantis."
- Published
- Bullón-Fernández, María. Goods and the Good in "Confessio Amantis." In John Gower in England and Iberia: Manuscripts, Influences, Reception. Ed. Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and R. F. Yeager. Publications of the John Gower Society X. Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2014. Pp. 183-92.
- Review
- Poverty, Bullón-Fernández points out, is not a major theme in "Confessio Amantis." Gower does, however, explore "the relation between subjects and objects" (187)--that is, between the self and possessions--in Book V of the poem, devoted to avarice. This exploration depends on the meaning of two words, "properte" and "astat." The tale of Midas depicts the discordant effects of avarice by presenting the boundary between the animate self and inanimate things as "excessively porous" (188). Midas's power to turn anything he likes into gold transforms his "astat" in two senses: the things around him and himself. For Bullón-Fernández, the story and its moral qualify Genius's discussion of "gentilesse" in Book IV. This discourse notes that the self and possessions are alike in being transient, whereas virtue endures as an outgrowth of the soul. Nevertheless, Genius's use of the terms "good" and "goods" remains ambivalent. On the one hand, he uses the terms to refer to moral realities; on the other hand, to material ones as well. [MPK. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2]
- Date
- 2014
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis