"My Maisteris Dere": The Acknowledgement of Authority in "The Kingis Quair."

Author/Editor
Petrina, Alessandra.

Title
"My Maisteris Dere": The Acknowledgement of Authority in "The Kingis Quair."

Published
Petrina, Alessandra. "'My Maisteris Dere': The Acknowledgement of Authority in The Kingis Quair." Scottish Studies Review 7.1 (2006): 9-23. ISSN: 1475-7737.

Review
Reading "Kingis Quair" as a bridge between Scottish and English poetry and as a self-conscious poem about "the very act of writing of the poem" (19), Petrina examines the work's interplay of autobiography and literary tradition, discussing aspects of James I of Scotland's life--particularly his imprisonment and education in Lancastrian England--and the placement of the poem in the largely Chaucerian context of the only manuscript where it occurs: Oxford, Bodleian MS Arch. Selden B.24. Along the way, Petrina describes James's debts to Chaucer, with passing mention of Gower, and analyzes the dedication to these predecessors in the final stanza of the "Quair" (lines 1373-79), stating that "these lines should be read not as generic praise, but as a clear description of the two poets' main qualities" (18)--Gower as a moral poet and Chaucer as James's "teacher of 'ars poetica'"--going on to cite Lydgate and Hoccleve as evidence that "in fact, 'moralitee' and Gower never seem far apart" in fifteenth-century commentary "however damning this may sound" (19). Petrina's treatment of Gower is peripheral (at times, parenthetical) to her treatment of Chaucer's influence on the "Quair" and its reception. She concludes, "'The Kingis Quair' was probably first read in the same years in which, as king of Scotland, James was attempting a peaceful coexistence with his English neighbours; in such a context it becomes a testimony of the reception in Scotland of English writing, as well as of the King's English, here re-presented as Chaucer's (and Gower's) English" (20). [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2]

Date
2006

Gower Subjects
Influence and Later Allusion