Satire of counsel, counsel of satire: Representing advisory relations in later medieval literature.

Author/Editor
Newman, Jonathan M

Title
Satire of counsel, counsel of satire: Representing advisory relations in later medieval literature.

Published
Newman, Jonathan M. "Satire of counsel, counsel of satire: Representing advisory relations in later medieval literature." PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 2008.

Review
"Satire and counsel recur together in the secular literature of the High and Late Middle Ages. I analyze their collocation in Latin, Old Occitan, and Middle English texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century in works by Walter Map, Alan of Lille, John of Salisbury, Daniel of Beccles, John Gower, William of Poitiers, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Skelton. . . . In the first chapter I introduce the concepts and methodologies that inform this dissertation through a detailed consideration of Distinction One of Walter Map's "De nugis curialium" . . . . Chapter two looks at how twelfth-century authors of didactic poetry appropriate relational discourses from school and household to claim the authoritative roles of teacher and father. In the third chapter, I focus on texts that depict relations between princes and courtiers, especially the Prologue of the "Confessio Amantis" which idealizes its author John Gower as an honest counselor and depicts King Richard II (in its first recension) as receptive to honest counsel. The fourth chapter turns to poets with the uncertain social identities of literate functionaries at court. Articulating their alienation and satirizing the ploys of courtiers--including even satire itself--Thomas Hoccleve in the "Regement of Princes" and John Skelton in "The Bowge of Court

Date
2008

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis