"For Worldes Good."
- Author/Editor
- Brown, Harry J.
- Title
- "For Worldes Good."
- Published
- In The Crusades: Other Experiences, Alternate Perspectives: Selected Proceedings from the 32nd Annual CEMERS Conference, ed. Khalil I. Semaan (Binghamton, NY: Global Academic, 2003), pp. 179-91.
- Review
- This article provides a careful examination of the Tale of Constance from Book 2 of the "Confessio Amantis" in terms of the shifts in attitudes toward crusading in the later fourteenth century. He leads with reference to the 1396 Battle of Nicopolis (a disaster for the European Christians), and goes from there to suggest that Gower would have been somewhat suspicious of the crusading impulse, as part of the "lawe positif" he critiques in the Prologue to the CA. When Brown brings his attention to the Tale of Constance, he examines its sources: the folkloric trope of the "calumniated queen," and Nicholas Trivet's Anglo-Norman "Chronicle." In particular, though Brown notes that Gower has to squeeze the story a bit to fit it into the book on Envy, most of his analysis will focus on Gower's changes to the details of Trivet's version of the story. He notes in particular that Gower leaves out some of the details of the treaty between Tiberius and the Sultan (the ceding of Jerusalem to the Christians), and the slaughter in revenge of "11,000 infidels" (183). He argues that for Gower had to eliminate these details because they reinforce the dangerous fantasy of the crusade, which was finding its last gasp in the fourteenth century. Brown goes on to cite scholars' analyses of Trivet's contributions to the story, as a "recollection of Christian glories from the early crusade era" (185). If, then, Trivet's story is a "Christian fantasy of the impossible Crusade" (186), for Gower, the cuts respond to the "volatile political climate and dangerous propaganda in England during the death throes of the Crusade era," especially in "response to Philipe of Mézières" (187). He concludes that this shows that Gower was ahead of many of his contemporaries in seeing that it was time for the crusades to be over. Brown's argument overall makes sense, at least for this story, and he makes a good case that Gower's work here contrasts with some of his contemporaries. He does not, however, tie this particular issue to Gower's broader preoccupation with war and peace across his oeuvre. [RAL. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.2.]
- Date
- 2003
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations