"Loquela gravis iuvat": Gower's "O deus immense" and the Place of Poetry, 1398–1400.
- Author/Editor
- Weiskott, Eric.
- Title
- "Loquela gravis iuvat": Gower's "O deus immense" and the Place of Poetry, 1398–1400.
- Published
- Weiskott, Eric . "'Loquela gravis iuvat': Gower's 'O deus immense' and the Place of Poetry, 1398–1400." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 45 (2023): 205-46 .
- Review
- Weiskott's essay casts many lines in many ponds, making summarization difficult. Setting out "to demonstrate that 'O deus immense' can illuminate Gower's attitudes to poetry, his rebarbative late Latin poetic style, the shape of his career, his position in literary and political culture late in life, and the broader political moment of those years," as well as offering "new evidence for the influence of 'O deus immense' on one of his own subsequent compositions" (209)--i.e., the "Cronica Tripertita"--he scarcely has space, even in forty-one pages, to do full justice to all of them. The topic that holds his attention longest is making a case that Gower saw himself as "vatic" poet (235), consciously casting himself in the role of a prophet (esp. 235-44), with some similarities to John of Bridlington. Lack of firm dates for many of the poems Weiskott discusses makes this case difficult: it's hard to claim foresight if a poem is written after the fact. The essay does, however, offer a strong argument for reading the shorter, late Latin poems with greater care and attention. [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.1]
- Date
- 2023
- Gower Subjects
- Minor Latin Poetry
Style, Rhetoric, and Versification