"The Veil of Fiction": Thomas Warton on Gower and Chaucer (1754).
- Author/Editor
- Weiskott, Eric.
- Title
- "The Veil of Fiction": Thomas Warton on Gower and Chaucer (1754).
- Published
- Weiskott, Eric. "'The Veil of Fiction': Thomas Warton on Gower and Chaucer (1754)." Notes and Queries 71 [269], no. 2 (2024): 220-24.
- Review
- Weiskott calls attention to a passage "that could be construed as central to the canonization of Gower and Chaucer in modern literary studies" in Warton's "Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser" which says of Gower and Chaucer that they "were reputed the first English poets, because they first introduced 'invention' into our poetry; they 'moralized their song' and strove to render virtue more amiable by cloathing her in the veil of fiction." By "fiction" Warton meant "metaphors of enigma and concealment" and consequently ascribes to Gower and Chaucer a form of literary value that Spenser would have been prepared to recognize--"Namely, while it is the purpose of literature in the wider sense to communicate 'virtue', it is the privilege and the responsibility of imaginative writing to endue or clothe ethical precepts with flights of fancy" (223). Warton writes of Gower in his "History of English Poetry" "'If Chaucer had not existed, the compositions of John Gower . . . . would alone have been sufficient to rescue the reigns of Edward the third and Richard the second from the imputation of barbarism'" (223). (To Warton's "egregious warmth" of judgment here, Weiskott notes judiciously, "Few if any of Warton's contemporaries would go so far" [223]). Ultimately, Weiskott concludes that "In effect, Warton looked back on Gower and Chaucer through Spenser's eyes. We are still doing that" (224). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.2]
- Date
- 2024
- Gower Subjects
- Influence and Later Allusion