Illuminations in Gower's Manuscripts.

Author/Editor
Coleman, Joyce.

Title
Illuminations in Gower's Manuscripts.

Published
Coleman, Joyce. "Illuminations in Gower's Manuscripts." In Ana Sáez-Hidalgo, Brian Gastle, and R. F. Yeager, eds. The Routledge Research Companion to John Gower (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 117-131.

Review
Gower "seems to have been the first English literary author to create an illustration program for his work," and the first in English to use illustrations "which feature an author-persona as part of a story's action" (117). For the VC, he commissioned the picture of an archer shooting an arrow at the world, underscoring his self-conceived, Bible-based role as a preacher and prophet excoriating abuses (118-21). For the CA, he used the statue from the dream of Nebuchadnezzar to picture the world's decline (121), and the highly self-conscious image of the author as Amans confessing to Genius (124-26). Two late manuscripts have more illuminations, in one case alleged to especially feature women (126). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 37.2.]

Date
2017

Gower Subjects
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Vox Clamantis
Confessio Amantis