Caxton and Gower

Author/Editor
Bennett, J. A. W

Title
Caxton and Gower

Published
Bennett, J. A. W. "Caxton and Gower." Modern Language Review 45.2 (1950), pp. 215-216.

Review
Bennett compares Gower's tale of "Ceix and Alceone" with its analogue in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 11) and with Caxton's 1480 translation of Ovid. Gower turns Juno's injunction to Iris (to visit the cave of Morpheus) into indirect speech, describes Iris's "velamina mille colorum" as a "Reyny Cope ... begon with colours of diverse hewe," and glosses "ebenus" as "that slepi tree." Caxton, three years before he would print the CA, makes the same changes in his retelling of Ovid, and even borrows the exact phrasing of these details from Gower. [CvD]

Date
1950

Gower Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Confessio Amantis
Influence and Later Allusion