Gower's Aristotelian Legacy: Reading Responsibility in the "Confessio Amantis" and the "Lytle Bibell of Knyghthod."
- Author/Editor
- Schieberle, Misty.
- Title
- Gower's Aristotelian Legacy: Reading Responsibility in the "Confessio Amantis" and the "Lytle Bibell of Knyghthod."
- Published
- Schieberle, Misty. "Gower's Aristotelian Legacy: Reading Responsibility in the Confessio Amantis and the Lytle Bibell of Knyghthod." 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. 305-22.
- Review
- Schieberle sets the agenda for her essay briskly: "I outline some of Gower's key Aristotelian views, trace their legacy, and argue that they influence a unique fifteenth-century adaptation of Christine de Pizan's 'Epistre Othea'"—"The Lytle Bibell of Knyghthod"--that "was copied by Anthony Babyngton into a collection that includes lessons in heraldry, hunting terms in French and English, genealogies of English kings, and other arguably educational material. The Gowerian features that I identify lay the groundwork for understanding the "Bibell" translator's work as a consciously framed Aristotelian reading of Christine's "Othea" shaped by the English literary trends of his day" (305). Specifically, Schieberle tells us, Gower's assertion of the Aristotelian mean at the opening of the "Confessio Amantis" (Prologue, 17-21), his concern with the "middle weie" between "social obligations and personal moral decisions" (307), and his notions of fate, fortune, and the figure of Atropos indicate that moral agency is effective in negotiating the "external controls over human lives" (308). Schieberle shows that "wise, prudent behavior . . . can forestall fate" (312) in tales such as that of "Rosiphele" and, in subtler ways, that of Jephthah's daughter. She argues that these concerns are also entailed ironically in Amans's "misunderstanding of what it means to be morally alert and active." evident in his thoughts on Atropos and destiny (CA 4.2754-70) that include a relevant "joke" on Troilus's comic inactivity in Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" (312). Schieberle then traces similar concerns with determinism and Atropos in Lydgate's "Troy Book" and in Babyngton's "Lytle Bibell" to argue that the latter is not only an adaptation/translation of Pizan's "Epistre Othea" but also part of a growing tradition in English in which human responsibility balances fateful influences in the shaping of events and outcomes, with the potential to defer even death. Schieberle presents Gower as "the forefather of a literary movement that transforms English views of Fortune, fate, and virtue" (307) without arguing that he is the ultimate or only source of these ideas. She carefully acknowledges that Gower does not fail "to acknowledge that man's power over his future has limits" (308), citing the "Tale of Two Coffers," but she emphasizes the predominant importance of prudent moral responsibility in CA. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Influence and Later Allusion
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations