Gower's 'bokes of Latin': Language, Politics, and Poetry

Author/Editor
Echard, Siân

Title
Gower's 'bokes of Latin': Language, Politics, and Poetry

Published
Echard, Siân. "Gower's 'bokes of Latin': Language, Politics, and Poetry." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 25 (2003), pp. 123-156.

Review
Currently fashionable attempts to "romance the vernacular," Echard writes, borrowing an expression from Sarah Stanbury, together with the prevalent characterization of Latin as an “authoritative monolith,” tend to imply that "Latin does not have its own complexities, an implication which makes it difficult to read Latin as subtly--or even as politically--as we might read other languages" (124 n.). Echard challenges these and several other assumptions about the relations among the languages in late medieval England in her examination of Gower's use of Latin in VC and TC in light of Gower's own comments about language in these and in his other works. With regard to VC and TC, she argues that rather than expressing Gower's inherently conservative political agenda, Gower's choice of Latin for his two most historically oriented works "is far more complex, and more fraught with poetic uncertainties, than it has traditionally been understood to be" (130). VC contains recurring references to language, in the poet's references to the difficulties of his own speaking in Book 1, in the numerous references to the "speech which is not speech of the peasants" (134), and in the denunciations of the misuse of public rhetoric in the allusions to Wat Tyler and John Ball. The latter, combined with the poet's anxieties about his own discourse, lead to "an awareness of the perils inherent in Latin as well as the vernacular" (137). In the books that follow the opening vision, "Gower points many of the criticisms of the estates . . . in terms of the misuse and misapplication of both language and learning, and the ease with which people can be misled by educated abusers of both the spoken and written word" (139). His suspicions extend to "untrustworthy poets or, at best, unscrupulous people who take advantage of poetic words; for indeed, it seems that any wrought speech is necessarily anathema, and contrary to God’s desire" (143). His comments here are echoed in MO, which in lines 14665-76 suggests that "Latin is particularly subject to misuse precisely because it carries the flavor of clerkly authority and the appeal to scholarly pride" (143), and in his often quoted praise of plain speech in Book 7 of CA. "The topos is not unusual, but Gower's almost obsessive return to it, no matter when or in what language he writes, is striking, as is his tendency to be both confident and pessimistic about plain truth's ability to be made manifest" (145). Gower’s shift to English in CA might suggest that "Gower finds both his poetic voice, and unproblematic access to truth, in the voice and forms of the common folk" (145), but in fact Gower remains no less concerned about the evasive nature of language, as evidenced by his comments in the Prologue on the commons. In each of his works, therefore, Gower reveals his "deep uncertainty about the relationship between his poetic tongue(s) and the truth" (148), a concern that certainly does not exclude Latin. Echard concludes with a consideration of Gower’s additions and revisions to VC and CA, including his rewriting of the account of his works in the colophon to CA. She points to Gower's "lifelong habit of aggregating, as well as revising, his texts" and his "constant--almost obsessive--desire to revisit his poetic mission" (154). In this repeated effort, "Rather than moving toward any kind of simple resolution of the dilemmas inherent in poetic speech, it seems Gower might in fact have recognized that his own multilingual, multiversioned oeuvre was in the end the closest approach he could make to truth, if her were not simply to fall silent and pray" (ibid.). "The progression from the Vox to the Confessio," she concludes, "and through the various revisions of each of these works, is not an evolution, if that means a discarding of outdated language or modes. It is, instead, an accumulation, in response to the recognition that England is a complex political space, requiring of its poet an equally complex poetic voice. Gower's head rests on three books, not one, and Latin remained with England's poet to his dying day, and beyond it" (156).
It is no small part of the value of this essay that it contains, in its notes, a valuable survey of the on-going discussion of the issue of vernacularity in late medieval England. And as a bonus, Echard also provides her own excellent verse translations for each of the passages that she quotes from VC. One has to wonder how much Gower's reputation might improve in the sadly monolinguistic culture that has succeeded his if we could induce her to complete the translation of the entire poem. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 23.1.]

Date
2003

Gower Subjects
Language and Word Studies
Vox Clamantis
Cronica Tripertita