Old Age in Middle English Literature: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain-Poet
- Author/Editor
- Mehl, Dieter
- Title
- Old Age in Middle English Literature: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain-Poet
- Published
- Mehl, Dieter. "Old Age in Middle English Literature: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain-Poet." In Old Age and Ageing in British and American Culture and Literature. Ed. Jansohn, Christa. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004, pp. 29-38.
- Review
- Middle English depictions of old age fall into several distinctive categories: the "ugly witch” (SGGK, WBT), the “disturbing reminder of death” (PardT, PP), but most numerous of all, the figure of the impotent lover. “The most disturbing, comical or sobering thing about old age, according to most medieval poets, is that it makes you unfit for love” (29). Female examples include the figure of Elde in RR and the old woman in WBT, but “the majority of Love’s ageing victims . . . are old men” (31). A cruelly comic example occurs in MerT. More serious and more disillusioning is the experience of the aged lover at the end of CA. “In the end, the ageing poet is left feeling that he has wasted his time on an illusionary pursuit and had better go home to spend the remainder of his life in prayer. . . . This is a long way from the comedy of January, even though the final lesson may be the same: old age represents a time of life when man should turn his thought to more serious matters than love and think of his end. The universal symptoms of senile infirmity, so easily laughed at in the conventional fabliau, will turn into a frightening memento mori when taken seriously” (34-35). A more moving, and much less conventional, picture of ageing can be found in the Book of Margery Kempe, which describes Margery’s caring for her invalid husband. “There comes through this account an impression of genuine devotion and human charity that says more about some real problems of old age than many more poetical texts” (38). [Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.2/]
- Date
- 2004
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis