John Gower and the Exemplum Form: Tale Models in the "Confessio Amantis."
- Author/Editor
- Yeager, R. F.
- Title
- John Gower and the Exemplum Form: Tale Models in the "Confessio Amantis."
- Published
- Yeager, R. F. "John Gower and the Exemplum Form: Tale Models in the "Confessio Amantis." Mediaevalia 8 (1982): 307-35
- Review
- A taxonomy of five types or models of exempla used in the "Confessio Amantis" structures Yeager's essay. He affiliates the exempla of CA with those found in homilies, crediting G. R. Owst's landmark study, "Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England," and he sets out "to demonstrate in what ways Gower makes use of the exemplum in constructing his most successful poem" (307). The "secular" exempla of CA, Yeager tells us, are essential to making the CA "readable" as both "pleasing fiction, and, in a very real way, as sermon" (312); the device is clearly signaled by Gower (Yeager lists numerous instances where "ensample" refers to a tale or tales, pp. 312-13), helps to justify Genius's role as priest and confessor (310-11), and, Yeager suggests, may help to explain both the poet's "plain writing" (313), and his didactic mode. In short, "Gower made use of the exemplum as a paradigm for narration" in CA (314). Description and elucidation of the five types or models follow: detailed explications of single representative tales drawn from Book 1 of CA, read in light of their sources. The "Tale of Capaneus" represents Gower's straightforward "extraction of a narrative from its source" (315); in Narcissus he borrows with added details "to adapt a tale more precisely to his needs" (318); and in the Trojan Horse, the horse is not just an "object" in a plot but an "emblem" (322) of the vice it illustrates. The other two types of exempla, Yeager shows, work by negation; for instance, the "Tale of Florent" dramatizes a "direct negation of 'Murmur and Complaint'" (323), and the "Tale of Three Questions" negates Pride by presenting the "offsetting virtue" (325) of Humility in complex ways. Indeed, the intricacy of Yeager's analysis of humility as theme in the "Three Questions" is quite subtle, as are, for example, his emphasis on psychological process in "Florent" and the suggestive diction of feigning in the "Trojan Horse." Yet, these matters operate outside the parameters of Yeager's taxonomy. He is attentive to detail and nuance and his close readings disclose Gower's successful integration of style, form, and theme, but the five categories are quite general and, Yeager admits, subject to "variations" (330) elsewhere in the CA. The categorization antedates and adumbrates the critical examination and theorizing of exempla and "exemplarity" of many later studies--including Yeager's own "John Gower's Poetic" (1990). Here it structures Yeager's readings of five individual tales [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2]
- Date
- 1982
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations