"Al université de tout le monde": Public Poetry, English and International.
- Author/Editor
- McCabe, T. Matthew N.
- Title
- "Al université de tout le monde": Public Poetry, English and International.
- Published
- McCabe, T. Matthew N. "'Al université de tout le monde': Public Poetry, English and International." 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. 261-78.
- Review
- McCabe discusses the multiple readership that Gower cultivates: "an emergent literary public" (266) and a private aristocratic audience. Gower's poetry takes up themes of common profit, erotic love, and the complex relationships between the two. In this respect, it may be compared to the writings of Alain Chartier (c.1385-1430), who is interested in the "exchangeability" (267) of political and amatory matter. In his prose "Quadrilogue invectif," Chartier portrays "affairs of state in terms of desire" (268), generalizing civic responsibility across the three medieval estates. In "Confessio Amantis," Gower likewise assigns the blame for social chaos to everyone ("ous alle," Prol.525), directly connecting the public and the private. Similarly, in the "Traitié," Gower seems to be addressing both "one noble patron" and "an indeterminate, public readership" (275). His warnings about adultery here are not particular but general. Marriage, as Gower sees it, is a social good, the equivalent of Chartier's "l'affection publique." [MPK. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2]
- Date
- 2014
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Traité pour Essampler les Amants Marietz
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations