"The law of God in here modyr tonge": The Vernacular Theology of Sir John Clanvowe.
- Author/Editor
- Otey, Kirsten Johnson.
- Title
- "The law of God in here modyr tonge": The Vernacular Theology of Sir John Clanvowe.
- Published
- Otey, Kirsten Johnson. "The law of God in here modyr tonge": The Vernacular Theology of Sir John Clanvowe. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Colorado at Boulder, 1999. viii, 198 pp. Dissertation Abstracts International A60.12. Fully accessible vis ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
- Review
- In her dissertation, Otey shows that Clanvowe's "Boke of Cupide" and his "The Two Ways" establish him as "an intense and innovative writer of vernacular theology" (183), assessing the writer in light of Lollard discourse on the use of English in religious writing and political reactions against such discourse. She includes comments on Chaucer's and Gower's uses of English in religious contexts, evincing that both poets use it for nationalistic purposes, but that Gower, more than Chaucer, reflects "anxiety" about doing so. Addressing Gower's stylistic "middel weie" as reference to using vernacular English in his "Confessio Amantis," commenting on Gower's recitation of the story of Babel, and treating Latin as a framing device for his English poem, Otey concludes that "Gower, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, exhibits an anxiety precipitated by using English for religious writing at a time when it was increasingly controversial to do so" (160). [MA]
- Date
- 1999
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Language and Word Studies