The Mythological Sciences of John Gower, Medieval Classicists, and Morgan MS M. 126.

Author/Editor
Gerber, Amanda.

Title
The Mythological Sciences of John Gower, Medieval Classicists, and Morgan MS M. 126.

Published
Gerber, Amanda. "The Mythological Sciences of John Gower, Medieval Classicists, and Morgan MS M. 126." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 40 (2018): 257-88; 6 b&w figs.

Review
Gerber's essay encourages readers to recognize aspects of the intertextuality of the "Confessio Amantis." She describes a medieval "grammar school tradition that interrelated classical narratives with studies of the natural world" (259)--often via commentaries, mnemonics, and diagrams--and "consistently connected mythological narratives to encyclopedic knowledge" (260), arguing that this tradition is the basis of similarities between Gower's poem and medieval encyclopedias. Gerber also aims to affirm the unity of CA, indicating that the inclusion of scientific material in Book VII (especially astronomy and astrology)--often regarded by critics as digressive--is of a piece with, and even derives from, the intertwining of medieval natural science and mythological narrative found in medieval encyclopedias and commentaries. Similarly, elsewhere in CA, the nativity of the Gorgons (I.389-97) amalgamates "planetary and mythological features" (269) in ways that Ovid's original does not; the account of the Chaldeans (5.752-65) interprets "polytheism as natural science" (270); and in the Cephalus account in Book IV, Gower "uses mythological appropriations to develop not only ethical exegesis but also natural science" (272). One thinks also of Chaucer's "Complaint of Mars" and "Knight's Tale" as well as--perhaps--the multilayered meanings of the Pearl-maiden as child, beloved, flower, and precious gem. Amalgamations of ethics, love poetry, and science (especially astral sciences) in Middle English literature are not rare, but connecting them with medieval school traditions and encyclopedias, as Gerber does, helps us to see how broad-based this habit of mind was. However, I think Gerber over specifies things at times, as when she presents the program of illustrations in CA manuscript New York Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 126 as something of a direct extension of "schoolboy's training," declaring "that the structure and information that Gower co-opted from his academic training [and replicated in CA] extended beyond grammar school classrooms by the second half of the fifteenth century to appear in at least one aristocrat's library" (284). Declaring in general terms that the starry skies in the manuscript's "miniatures emphasize the relationship between narratives and natural sciences" (278) and that the Arion image in the manuscript "provides a miniature version of the Confessio's amalgamation of natural and narrative compositions" (281-82), Gerber argues for rather direct, causal relations among intertextual features that may be better understood as coexistent phenomena in a stage of intellectual history. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]

Date
2018

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Manuscripts and Textual Studies