Gower in Striped Sleeves: "Mirour de l'Omme" as Gower's Early Humanism.
- Author/Editor
- Galloway, Andrew.
- Title
- Gower in Striped Sleeves: "Mirour de l'Omme" as Gower's Early Humanism.
- Published
- Galloway, Andrew. "Gower in Striped Sleeves: 'Mirour de l'Omme' as Gower's Early Humanism." In Studies in the Age of Gower: A Festschrift in Honour of R. F. Yeager. Ed. Susannah Mary Chewning. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. Pp. 119-34.
- Review
- Galloway argues here for the importance of humanism in the MO in a triple sense, with Gower's text demonstrating: 1) "a central focus on human affairs and human responsibility for shaping their circumstances and consequences"; 2) "a use of some ancient sources as means to bolster its secular and social ethics;" and, lastly, 3) "a continual attention to contemporary London and Westminster institutions and practices, especially mercantile practices and parliament" (122). Most crucially, Galloway suggests that Gower is distinctive in presenting himself through a striking quasi-clerical identity. As he describes it, "[Gower] is learned, he is courtly, he is worldly; but he is also a reader of ancient texts for purposes that fit neither the traditional social nor vocational contexts around him. It is in this sense, I think, that he forges an identity most suited to the new world of 'humanist' England and Europe, which features 'studia humanitatis' but also makes that the basis for a novel vocational and intellectual identity, appropriating and transforming received intellectual and social positions by viewing them as if from a remove" (123). Galloway substantiates these claims through a detailed reconsideration of Gower's use of Seneca in the MO, arguing both that Seneca is referenced much more frequently that has hitherto been acknowledged, but also that Gower engages these citations with great energy and creativity in order to bring them to bear on the particular social disruptions of the contemporary world of London. [EK. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]
- Date
- 2020
- Gower Subjects
- Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis)
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations