Accumulating Easts: Ancient Geographies and Genealogies in John Gower's "Confessio Amantis."
- Author/Editor
- Gerber, Amanda J.
- Title
- Accumulating Easts: Ancient Geographies and Genealogies in John Gower's "Confessio Amantis."
- Published
- Gerber, Amanda J. "Accumulating Easts: Ancient Geographies and Genealogies in John Gower's Confessio Amantis." New Medieval Literatures 25 (2025): 169-99.
- Review
- In the CA, Gerber claims, Gower presents a "sundry" ideal of the "East," derived from "geographical, astronomical, and genealogical representations of the region, each of which offers a different outline" (171). In a learned discussion ranging from Hesiod and Cicero to Abu' Ma'shar ("Abumazar"), Gerber follows each of these threads, illustrating how they intertwine and separate, producing multiple definitions of the "East," which for Gower is not only a compass point but more importantly a multivalent, changing geography (i.e., "The poem's encyclopedic Book VII alone provides three distinct maps of an East" [173]), as well as a vehicle for describing the multiple explanation of origins Gower found in his Greek, Roman, and Abrahamic/biblical sources. The lands, moreover, are inhabited by equally shifting populations, most of them "heathens"--though "'hethenesse' refers to non-Christian regions in the Mediterranean, Balkans, Iberian peninsula, and the Baltic" (187). Ultimately, Gerber finds in the CA extraordinary diversity: "Gower . . . collects branches of ancient Easts, juxtaposing their proliferations to compile ancient histories anew" (197). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.2]
- Date
- 2025
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, Aanlogues, and Literary Relations