Chaucer and Crusader Ethics: Youth, Love, and the Material World.
- Author/Editor
- Elias, Marcel.
- Title
- Chaucer and Crusader Ethics: Youth, Love, and the Material World.
- Published
- Elias, Marcel. "Chaucer and Crusader Ethics: Youth, Love, and the Material World." Review of English Studies, New Series 70 (2019): 618-39.
- Review
- Elias presents the Knight and the Squire as ideological opposites, the latter offering a contrasting critique of the Knight's crusading life. "Chaucer appropriated from contemporary critics of the morals and conduct of crusaders: between aged wisdom, and youthful passion to admonish their military intemperance; between love of God, and love of the world, often couched in terms of chivalric love-service, to decry their vainglorious motives; and between humble and ostentatious attire to denounce their excessive attachment to the material world" (618). Gower joins Chaucer as a critic of the crusading ethos (the Despenser Crusade in particular), and the Squire's "amorous ethics," which would have displeased Gower (quoting ll. 23895, 23901-3, 23951-2, 23961, 23969, 24037-8): "whose Mirour de l'omme (c.1376–1379) assigns contemporary enthusiasm for religious fighting in 'Espruce' and 'Tartarie' to desire for God but also 'pour loos' (for praise) and 'pour m'amye, / Dont puiss avoir sa druerie' (for my beloved, so I may have her affection). For Gower, Elias writes, "love is a flawed motive" (629) which is "inextricably linked to the pursuit of praise and fame and stands as a symbol of knights' vainglorious ambitions" (631). In both the "Confessio Amantis" and the "Vox Clamantis," Gower expresses an especially dim view of warrior-clerics (635) like Despenser, whom Elias argues the Squire joined in Flanders, Artois, and Picardy, and that he represents an especially good foil for the Knight. [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.2]
- Date
- 2019
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Vox Clamantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations