Classical Mythology in the "Confessio Amantis" of John Gower.
- Author/Editor
- Leonhard, Zelma Bernice.
- Title
- Classical Mythology in the "Confessio Amantis" of John Gower.
- Published
- Leonhard, Zelma Bernice. "Classical Mythology in the Confessio Amantis of John Gower." Ph.D. dissertation. Northwestern University, 1944. vi, 274 pp. Dissertation Abstracts International A77.12 (E) [2017]: n.p. Available at ProQuest Dissertations & Theses; accessed January 12, 2022.
- Review
- Leonhard's dissertation is an alphabetical "Onomasticon" (name-dictionary) of "Confessio Amantis." It lists and identifies the "deities, persons, and places associated with [the Greco-Roman] mythological tradition" (iii), up to and including Ovid, that appear in Gower's poem, arranged by standardized classical spellings rather than Gower's own (but see the Index mentioned below), running from "Acamus" to "Zodiac." Leonhard's entries (some, a few lines; others, several pages) identify appropriate characteristics, plots, motifs, and contexts associated with a given name, and they provide the frequency of occurrences in CA with line numbers from Macaulay's edition, along with authenticating references to classical sources, the commentary tradition, and compilations through Boccaccio's "De Genealogia Deorum." The citations are not comprehensive, but representative of the tradition Gower must have known, as Leonhard sees it, and "if possible," she tells us with due hesitation, she indicates "the poet's probable source and his adaptation of that source" (iii). Some of the information is straightforward identification; some, more expansive. For example, the entry on "Alcestis" states that Gower is interested in her "only as the exemplary wife . . . ," but, in a footnote to the entry, we learn more specifically that the poet "omits the recall of Alcestis from Hades" and that "Ovid does not tell the story of Alcestis at all" (14). More discursively, at "Nysa" (73), where the Gowerian equivalent is "Dyon," Leonhard records that "Mount Nysa in India" is the "birthplace of Bacchus," citing corroborating references to the First Vatican Mythographer, Fulgentius, and Boccaccio, but then opining that "Gower must have had some reason for choosing the name 'Dyon'," she adds the cross-reference "See Semele" and goes on to suggest that Gower "could have had in mind the Greek name Dionysus" (90-91). Footnotes and cross-references abound, and the whole project must have been a Herculean chore to type and correct on a manual typewriter. Following the dictionary itself (pp. 4-101), Leonhard includes "An Appendix Composed of Contextual Excerpts from the Sources Referred to in the Onomasticon" (pp. 102-242)--extensive quotations of the passages in Latin, French, and English of the sources that Leonhard cites in the dictionary proper. A skeletal "Outline of Gower's Moral Tale" (pp. 243-55) follows--i.e., a topic outline or table of contents of CA arranged by Book, vice and/or virtue, and the tales used to illustrate them. The dissertation ends with an alphabetical Index of the included names in Gower's own spelling and usage--i.e., "Alceste" rather than "Alcestis" and "Dyon" rather than "Nysa"--that refers us back to the classical name-list, followed by a Bibliography of the sources Leonhard used. The whole project is painstaking, and although some of its information and perspectives have been superseded by more recent and wider research, it is a useful reference work and, nearly 80 years on, notable as marker in the reception history of Gower. Fortunately, the .pdf reproduction of the original typescript is widely and readily accessible. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 41.1]
- Date
- 1944
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Bibliographies, reports, and Reference
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations