Dismembered Memories: Philomela in Chaucer and Gower

Author/Editor
Allen-Goss, Lucy M.

Title
Dismembered Memories: Philomela in Chaucer and Gower

Published
Allen-Goss, Lucy M. "Dismembered Memories: Philomela in Chaucer and Gower." Rape Culture and Female Resistance in Late Medieval Literature, edited by Sarah Baechle, Carissa M. Harris, and Elizaveta Strakhov. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2022. Pp. 80-96.

Review
Allen-Goss charts the history of the Philomela narrative from its classical origins, in which the woven tapestry she uses to betray Tereus's crime is the central story. She examines how the tapestry and weaving more generally are conflated with women's speech, suggesting that "the textile is a form of 'écriture feminine,' woman's art, which writes back against the patriarchal narrative of violence" (81). Medieval readers would have been "textile-conscious" and thus she argues that "as weaving, Philomela's testimony offers crucial new possibilities for the interpretation of rape testimony, offering a model concentrated upon recuperative expression for the rape survivor rather than a performative or exploitable 'breaking of silence'" (83). In Gower's version of this tale, she concludes, "the display of rhetorical skill and erudition . . . works to discredit Philomela's emotional testimony amongst the very group of readers with the greatest social and legal capital: Latin-literate men" (84). Allen-Goss offers insightful close readings of Gower's text in support of this claim before then moving into an analysis of Chaucer's version of the tale. She focuses on Philomela's weaving during her imprisonment and how the rough, coarse material she weaves mirrors Philomela's state of being in the tale. Furthermore, this larger-scale tapestry, weaving, and memory all interplay to produce a lasting and communal form of testimony. [JGS. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1]

Date
2022

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis
Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations