Rhetoric, John Gower, and the Late Medieval Exemplum.

Author/Editor
Olsson, Kurt.

Title
Rhetoric, John Gower, and the Late Medieval Exemplum.

Published
Olsson, Kurt. "Rhetoric, John Gower, and the Late Medieval Exemplum." Medievalia et Humanistica 8 (1977): 185-200.

Review
The exemplum, Olson asserts, has "little attraction or excitement for modern students of literature because the narrative itself is exceedingly brief, often inhumanly simple, the morality is familiar, and the relations between the two is unequivocal, even obvious" (185). In the handbooks of preachers, the exemplum was considered a sop for the "simplices." But in the hands of accomplished poets like Chaucer (in the Canterbury Tales) and Gower, in the Mirour de l'Omme and the Confessio Amantis, the exemplum can be a significant rhetorical device. "Action is shown parallel by the device of similitude, making implicit in the result of one deed the consequence of another" (187). Rhetorically the method, known as "homoeosis," depends for its success on a comparison of the familiar with the less so: "quia familiaris est doctrina exemplaris" (188). The form "is thought by some to be inferior to allegory" (189). But in fact there is a "continuum between the exemplum and allegory," and in fact, allegory and exemplum co-exist happily (189). Olsson chooses examples from the MO and Gower's tale of "Ulysses and the Sirens" to illustrate how Gower can construct a narrative "directed toward inviolable moral principles, teaching an anticipatory virtue, insight into the motives and effects of action beforehand" (190). This is what Olsson calls "a rhetoric of action," citing Roger Bacon as one who identifies this sort of exemplum as "poetic" (194). To illustrate, he looks at the "Tale of Rosiphelee" (CA IV. 1245-1446). But the lesson of this tale, he asserts, seems incongruous for Amans whose love-service is "comically" extreme--and thus representative of the "rhetorical dilemma" of Bk. IV, midway in the poem. The lesson of the whole CA is that while love is "natural," it must be guided by reason. Thus Genius gauges his exempla according to Amans' ability to understand at any point. In Bk. IV, love is a natural thing, but in Bk. VIII "the law has changed" (195), the "Tale of Apollonius" teaching that irrational love has consequences. "In Gower's rhetoric . . . the story often encourages the quest of a truth which is greater than that expressed in the tale itself" (196). Olsson sees the entire CA in this light: "Though it has referents, though it illustrates "truths" and offers precedents, we impoverish the work and Gower's "moralitee" if we relinquish the "game" of the narrative, for it is the narrative which fashions the morality, "Gower," and the audience" (198). Olsson concludes "The nature and magnitude of this tale [i.e., the CA entire] can remind us that though John Gower, among the great Ricardian poets, is usually thought closest to the homilists in his rhetoric, he is free enough in his poetical art to discover new potential in the 'exemplum'" (198). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.2]

Date
1977

Gower Subjects
Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
Confessio Amantis
Mirour de l'Omme