Alexander the Great: A Study of Legitimacy, Futility, and the Problem of Getting Home Safely in Gower's "Confessio Amantis."

Author/Editor
Peck, Russell A.

Title
Alexander the Great: A Study of Legitimacy, Futility, and the Problem of Getting Home Safely in Gower's "Confessio Amantis."

Published
Peck, Russell A. "Alexander the Great: A Study of Legitimacy, Futility, and the Problem of Getting Home Safely in Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'." In Valerie B. Johnson and Kara L. McShane, eds. Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture: Essays on Marginality, Difference, and Reading Practices in Honor of Thomas Hahn. Boston: De Gruyter; Medieval Institute Publications, 2022. Pp. 223-37.

Review
Peck's survey of the role(s) of Alexander in the "Confessio Amantis" identifies the many places where Alexander appears in CA and explores "the emperor's figural prominence" (223) in the work. Most often he focuses on the limitations of the ruler's knowledge and the ultimate futility of his conquests, suggesting implications of this characterization for the ruling class in Gower's day, specifically the Black Prince, Richard II, and Henry of Derby. Peck discusses Alexander's role in Nebuchadnezzer's dream in the Prologue of CA, two references to the emperor in Book 2, the tales of "Diogenes and Alexander" and of "Alexander and the Pirate" in Book 3, and two more references in Book 5. The "Tale of Nectanabus," with Alexander's unwitting killing of his father, Peck argues, is juxtaposed against the preceding father-son tale in "Ulysses and Telegonus" in Book 6 and he presents the large presence of Alexander in Book 7--with "fifteen citations of his name" amidst the concerns for the education of a king--as something of a crescendo in the CA overall. Deliberately on Gower's part, Peck tells us, Alexander is not mentioned in Book 8, where "Alexander's story is replaced by that of Apollonius of Tyre, a king who is basically different from all that Alexander stands for" (234), one who "provides the antidote to Alexander's kind of rule which leads to tyranny and oppression rather than enlightenment" (235). In the "ennobling spirit" of Apollonius's virtuous actions, idealized kingship, and peace, Peck concludes, Gower "would send forth his book, in hope that for generations to come it might keep his voice and vision alive," observing that in the Explicit to the Lancastrian recension of the CA, he sends it specifically to Henry Bolingbroke, Count of Derby (236). [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1]

Date
2022

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis