The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance.
- Author/Editor
- Heffernan, Carol F.
- Title
- The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance.
- Published
- Heffernan, Carol F. The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003.
- Review
- As part of her ranging study of depictions of the Orient and its peoples in medieval western romances--reflecting cultural contact through trade, pilgrimage, and crusading--Heffernan comments briefly on Gower's tales of Constance and Apollonius of Tyre, mentioning in passing only the incest motif in the latter (93-94) and dilating in somewhat greater detail on the presence and function of merchants and commerce in the former while comparing Gower's Constance tale with Chaucer's Man of Law's Prologue and Tale and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 5.2. In this discussion Heffernan attends to "curious intersections of mercantilism and faith which reflect the historical reality of the Eastern Mediterranean the Middle Ages" in Chaucer's tale and "less pervasive" ones in Gower's and Boccaccio's analogous accounts, even though those in Boccaccio do reveal "a greater intertextual connection" with MLT "than has been previously recognized" (23). All but ignoring their ultimate source in Trivet's "Chronicles" (mentioned only on p. 27), Heffernan takes for granted similarities between Gower's and Chaucer's versions, and observes several details of emphasis that distinguish Gower's: Constance's father is "[p]erhaps a crusader" and Constance herself a "religious crusader" who "seems worldly" in managing "to achieve conversions while actually trading with merchants" (41)--and when she confronts sexual assault with "ready pluck," more of a "take charge' heroine" (42) than Chaucer's Custance. For Gower, perhaps, it may be that "there was nothing inappropriate about a saintly woman converting merchants while doing business with them" (43)--a characterization, Heffernan surmises, shaped to justify the "clos Envie" of the Sultan's mother and thereby fitted to Gower's book of envy. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2]
- Date
- 2003
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations