John Gower Illustrated: The Archer Images, Astronomical Science, and Poetic Identity.
- Author/Editor
- Mitchell, J. Allan.
- Title
- John Gower Illustrated: The Archer Images, Astronomical Science, and Poetic Identity.
- Published
- Mitchell, J. Allan. "John Gower Illustrated: The Archer Images, Astronomical Science, and Poetic Identity." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 53 (2023): 287-321.
- Review
- Images of "Gower" as an archer taking aim on a round target, probably representing the world, as the accompanying verses ("Ad mundum mitto mea iacula") imply, appear in three manuscripts: San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, MS HM 150; London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A. iv; and Glasgow, University of Glasgow Library, MS Hunter 59. Usually the images are interpreted as representing jointly Gower's moral stance and his desire for (in David Carlson's words, as quoted by Mitchell [291] "auto-epitaphery"). Mitchell, however, argues that "the portrait can be seen as forming a striking silhouette of an elementary trigonometric diagram associated with the venerable practice of Ptolemaic astronomical computation, depicting bow (arcus), string (corda), and arrow (sagitta), all of them foundational mathematical terms" (291). That Gower directed the design Mitchell has no doubt: "Gower likely commissioned them during his long retirement at St. Mary Overeys in Southwark, coordinating image production by scribes and limners there or nearby in the city" (293). This certainty allows Mitchell grounds to see the Archer figure as "in outer space," as if Gower were presenting himself as a "new and as-yet unidentified constellation" (295). Gower's "affectionate account of 'Geometrie' and 'Astronomie' in the seventh book of 'Confessio Amantis'" (296) show that he "comprehends the special importance of geometrical figures to astronomy" (297)--and probably his solid knowledge of Ptolemy's "Almagest" and "chord theory" as presented by, among others, Gerbert of Aurillac (298-304). Gower, Mitchell concludes, would have intended two things by his portraits: 1) to reflect "on the wider intellectual cultures of his day" while simultaneously "tending to his image as a poet" in an act of "visual self-fashioning" and 2) to utilize the "formal and rhetorical significance of arc, chord, and sagitta" to triangulate "ethics, rhetoric, and mathematics"--what Mitchell deems the confluence of "scientia" and "conscientia" (312). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.2]
- Date
- 2023
- Gower Subjects
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Confessio Amantis