Spanish Literary Influence in England: John Gower and Pedro Alfonso.
- Author/Editor
- Yeager, R. F.
- Title
- Spanish Literary Influence in England: John Gower and Pedro Alfonso.
- Published
- Yeager, R. F. "Spanish Literary Influence in England: John Gower and Pedro Alfonso." 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. 119-29.
- Review
- Yeager suggests "an underestimated Spanish influence on Middle English poetry" (129) in the "Disciplina Clericalis," a collection of exempla assembled by the twelfth-century Spanish author, Pedro Alfonso. The text survives in 76 manuscripts, all but one of these--Worcester Cathedral Library MS F.172 (a careless Middle English translation)--in Latin. The essay traces the clear influence of the "Disciplina," probably by way of a French translation, on Chaucer's "Tale of Melibee," where Pedro and the "Disciplina" are mentioned at least five times; and on Gower's Anglo-French poem, the "Mirour de l'Omme," where they are mentioned twice. Yeager also suggests the possible influence of the "Disciplina" on Gower's enigmatic "Tale of the Three Questions" in Book I of "Confessio Amantis," devoted to the sin of pride. No source for the tale has been identified. Its narrative, however, involves the posing of three seemingly unanswerable questions by an unnamed king of Spain to a knight named Pedro, arguably invoking Pedro Alfonso and his work. [MPK. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.2]
- Date
- 2014
- Gower Subjects
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis)
Confessio Amantis