"For it Acordeth Noght to Kinde": Remediating Gower's "Confessio Amantis" in Machinima.
- Author/Editor
- Higley, Sarah L.
- Title
- "For it Acordeth Noght to Kinde": Remediating Gower's "Confessio Amantis" in Machinima.
- Published
- Higley, Sarah L. "'For it Acordeth Noght to Kinde': Remediating Gower's Confessio Amantis in Machinima." Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media 2.1 (2015): n.p.
- Review
- Sarah L. Higley's essay explains the process by which she recreated three of Gower's tales from the "Confessio Amantis" ("The Travelers and the Angel," "Canace and Machaire," and "Florent") in Second Life, an online virtual world that uses avatars and allows users, within certain limits, to create space and to express their characters' selves through art, accessories, etc. Higley makes the argument that this project engages the very medieval urge of retelling and compiling: "I argue that the medieval collaboration of author, scribe, illuminator, and reader, along with the penchant for gathering stories and adapting them, is reflected by filming in a multiply-occupied virtual world like Second Life that exhibits its users' recyclable creations. The artistic spaces I find there provide analogues not only for the spaces through which Gower's characters wander, but also for the symbolic iconography that informs Gower's work" (9-10). In great detail, Higley explains to readers the inner workings of Second Life and machinima, noting especially its strengths of collaboration and community. She even notes that the limitations of the medium--"its limited range of animations and facial expressions" (16)--actually help her to "resemble the multi-media qualities of a medieval illuminated manuscript" (16). Noting the specific difficulties presented in rendering Gower's Middle English in the virtual world, Higley then explains and reflects upon her process of recreating each of the three tales in Second Life. She concludes of her machinima, "These are not virtual voices. They speak across boundaries. Gower speaks to us across time, just as Ovid and other ancients spoke to Gower. Making this machinima was my attempt to speak for Gower, not just to Gower scholars but to viewers who could become familiar with his work and the vitality of Middle English language and literature" (56). [JGS. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.1]
- Date
- 2015
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
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