Translating Iconography in Gower, "Pearl," Chaucer, and the "Rose."
- Author/Editor
- Coleman, Joyce.
- Title
- Translating Iconography in Gower, "Pearl," Chaucer, and the "Rose."
- Published
- Coleman, Joyce. "Translating Iconography in Gower, 'Pearl,' Chaucer, and the 'Rose.'" In Susanna Fein and David Raybin, eds. Chaucer: Visual Approaches. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. Pp. 177-94.
- Review
- Coleman opens the conclusion of her essay with the "sneaking suspicion that some medievalists . . . would think 'Well, of course, it's obvious that English illumination would be influenced by "Roman de la Rose" iconography'" (192) and, in a way, she's right--but only in a way. In a crisp discussion of the influence of RR miniatures on three images from English illuminated manuscripts, she makes the influence obvious, contributes to audience or reception studies, and, one hopes, provides grounds for further investigations. The three images, treated in "chronological order by manuscript date" are "the confession scene in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 3), the dreamer scene in 'Pearl' (London, British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x), and the 'sermon' scene in the frontispiece to Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61)" (177). The essay reproduces all three in color, accompanied by images from RR that are either their sources or strong analogues in one way or another. In the case of the Gower image (Fairfax 3, folio 8r), Coleman shows that the miniature of Amans confessing to Genius combines features of RR miniatures of Nature confessing to Genius and of Amant approaching the Garden of Love, and asks "How might a sophisticated late fourteenth-century English viewer of the Fairfax 3 confession miniature have read the image's recombinant iconography?" In its simplest form, Coleman's answer is that the image would have signaled to the viewer that "if Amans could learn from Genius the proper way to pursue love, access would be granted to the joys it brings" (181). This answer is made more intriguing by Coleman's attention to ways in which it engages "Gower's mixed literary goals" and "mingles political issues . . . with the courtly and the ludic" (183). She sidesteps the question of whether or not Gower was himself the "designer" of the image (but see note 11), commenting on gender issues in the image (no Dame Nature or Lady Idleness), the collar of SS worn by Amans, his apparent age (treated with due caution due to manuscript damage), and the similar miniature of the confession scene found in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 294.The influences of the French scenes are clear and the implications of the Fairfax designer's treatment for viewer response, complex. Coleman's discussions of the influence of RR illuminations on images from "Pearl" and the "Troilus" manuscripts are similarly convincing and, like her treatment of the Gower image, rich in implication for how English miniature designers used RR iconography, and for how viewers are likely to have responded to their designs. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2]
- Date
- 2016
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantic
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Manuscripts and Textual Studies