The Literary Impact of the Pun in Middle English Literature.
- Author/Editor
- Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey.
- Title
- The Literary Impact of the Pun in Middle English Literature.
- Published
- Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey. "The Literary Impact of the Pun in Middle English Literature." In Geardagum: Essays on Old and Middle English 7 (1986): 17-36.
- Review
- Despite the more general import of its title, this article is almost entirely concerned with puns in the "Confessio Amantis," both in their own right, and as a "framework for the discussion of puns in medieval texts in general" (21), and Ricardian poetry in particular (18). Olsen begins by noting the deficiencies in previous scholarship that her study is meant to address: the mere presence of puns has been under-recognized in Ricardian poetry, as well as the potential "literary artistry" of the pun (17), as well as the sophisticated literary artistry of Gower (18). The skillful play on "foal/fool" at CA VIII.2407—"Olde grisel is no fole"—is her first example to the contrary. As a "grisel/gray horse," Amans is no longer a "foal," and thus, as echoed by the pun, he is no longer eligible to play the "fool" (18-19). The pun on "beste/beste" ("best" and "beast") was well established in Middle English, as witnessed by its appearance in the anonymous lyric "Foweles in the Frith" (19). Per Olsen, Gower uses it to resonate with his theme in "The Tale of Florent" (CA I.1740-41), where the hideous crone has the semblance of a "beast" (23), but in a triumph of "truth/troth" over mere "perception," she turns out to be the "beste" of women and speaker of the "truth" that Florent most needs to hear (23). Olsen proceeds to review the "pun theory" of earlier critics, allowing her to distinguish between the "simple pun" (22), a homonym with two or more meanings, both of which fit the syntax and significance of the context, and more complex types of puns, some aimed at more subliminal appreciation by the reader (19-23). All of these types she finds to be skillfully deployed in the CA, as they enhance the larger themes of their context within the single tale, the book, and the poem as a whole (22). In "The Tale of Acteon," using a common English pun also prominent in Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess," Acteon's willful "mislok"--a misdeed of the "Herte/heart"--has him changed into a "herte/hart," with fatal consequences (23-24). In a more complex play on words, Genius describes the sin of sacrilegious lovers with the warning "so nyh the weder thei wol love" (CA V.7048). As explained by G. C. Macaulay, this is a nautical metaphor meaning "so near the wind [so out of bounds] will they luff [steer the boat]," with the meaning "love" ruled out in Middle English by the rhyme with "glove." However, per Olsen, the near-homonym does awaken the moral association with misplaced "love," as well as the "voyage of life" as a topos connecting the poem as a whole (25), perhaps without the reader's full awareness of the double meaning. Olsen proceeds to analyze the subtle artistry of puns and near-puns in the CA, including "bote/bot/remedy/boat" in "Appollonius" (VIII.639), "salve/salve/salve/ greeting" (26), "povere/pouer" (in Langland as well as Gower, 27), more puns in "Florent" ( on "clepeth," "Mone," and "bridel," 27-28), wordplay throughout Book IV (especially on Slowthe and "spiede/speed, success," 28-30), and "wise/wise" throughout the poem (30-31). These help to make the CA "a complex network of themes and associations" that is "more than the sum of its parts on both narrative and linguistic levels" (31). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2]
- Date
- 1986
- Gower Subjects
- Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
Confessio Amantis