Chaucer, Gower and the Invention of History.
- Author/Editor
- Nowlin, Steele.
- Title
- Chaucer, Gower and the Invention of History.
- Published
- Dissertation Abstracts International A79.04 (2018): n.p. Pennsylvania State University Ph.D. Dissertation, 2007.
- Review
- In his dissertation Nowlin explores the "creative potential of understanding invention at once as a textual and historical concept," surveying uses of invention in rhetorical tradition and late-medieval English chronicles and maintaining that this creative potential "receives its fullest treatment in the poetic exchanges of John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer." He discusses "Vox Clamantis," "Cronica Triptertita," and various stories from the "Confessio Amantis," arguing that they present "a dominant authorial persona whose poetics impose inventional control over the disparate narratives of history. Gower attempts to refigure his literary opus as a series of poetic 'res gestae,' transforming poetic works into events constitutive of English history in order to rejuvenate English culture. Chaucer's later poetry critiques Gower's poetics both directly and indirectly, destabilizing Gower's model without offering a suitable replacement" (quoted from Nowlin's Abstract). [eJGN 40.2.]
- Date
- 2007
2018
- Gower Subjects
- Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Confessio Amantis
Cronica Tripertita
Vox Clamantis