Gower in Context(s): Scribal, Linguistic, Literary and Socio-historical Readings ed. by Laura Filardo-Llamas, Brian Gastle, Marta Gutiérrez Rodríguez (review)

This special issue of ES collects ten essays that originated as papers at the Second International Congress of the International John Gower Society in Valladolid, Spain, in 2012, and places Gower’s poetry (mainly the Confessio Amantis) into broader manuscript, social, political, literary, and—especially—international contexts.

The first three essays examine the Confessio in ‘Manuscript Context.’ In ‘Vernacular accessus: Text and Gloss in Gower’s Confessio Amantis and Christine de Pizan’s Épître Othéa,’ Ruen-chuan Ma argues that the Confessio and Épître respectively theorize and enact the validation of vernacular texts via a Latin tradition: Gower’s approach empowers the vernacular only by limiting it to the models of specific Latin writers, while ‘Christine’s approach opens classical narratives to different methods of reading and interpretation’ and ‘allows the vernacular to assume the instructive position usually ascribed to Latin’ (26). In ‘The Margins in the Iberian Manuscripts of John Gower’s Confessio Amantis: Language, Authority and Readership,’ Tamara Pérez-Fernández examines the removal and translation into vernaculars of the Latin apparatus in the Castilian and Portuguese translations of the Confessio. While also noting important differences between the Iberian manuscripts, Pérez-Fernández suggests that the alterations ‘threaten the carefully designed layers of textual interaction’ and impression of auctoritas that characterize the English versions (35). Rosemarie McGerr, in ‘Gower’s Confessio and the Nova statuta Angliae: Royal Lessons in English Law,’ argues that Gower was influenced by the Nova statuta’s opening section justifying the deposition of Edward II as a necessary action ‘that result[ed] from good counsel’ (52); she contends that the ‘hybrid quality’ of both texts blends ‘legal, religious, and literary genres’ in an effort to ‘create new frames of reference for…readers and present strong arguments for the king’s responsibility to uphold England’s laws’ (46).

The next three essays examine the ‘Socio-historical Context’ of Book One of the Confessio. Jerome Mandel sees ‘Conflict Resolution in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” and in Gower’s “Tale of Florent”’ as the key marker of difference between the tales: Chaucer’s tale resolves conflict ‘through personal negotiation’ (76), while Gower’s resorts to ‘the imposition of absolute judicial authority’ (74); Chaucer’s world ‘appeals to political, social, religious, and ethical authority, all of which are questioned, discussed, and negotiated,’ while ‘Gower’s world is more solid, more fixed, more dominated by principle than by negotiation’ (77). In ‘Controlling the Uncontrollable: Love and Fortune in Book 1 of the Confessio Amantis,’ Misty Schieberle detects thematic parallels between Guillaume de Machaut’s Jugement dou Roi de Behaingne, Remède de Fortune, and Confort d’Ami and Gower’s poem, arguing that the Confessio demonstrates Gower’s ‘careful close reading of Machaut’s approach to Fortune’ (86). Gower adapts Machaut’s counter-Boethian notion that a lover can defy or delay the dictates of Fortune by acting virtuously in both love and politics. Moreover, virtuous choices generate ‘reciprocal relationship[s]’ in others by ‘predispos[ing] others to the outcome the individual desires’ (91–92). Briefly surveying several tales of Book One, including ‘Florent,’ ‘Nebuchadnezzar,’ and the ‘Three Questions,’ Schieberle concedes that Gower, extending Machaut’s philosophy, suggests that one can ‘prepar[e] oneself for forces one cannot control completely’ (93). In ‘Arguing from Foreign Grounds: John Gower’s Leveraging of Spain in English Politics,’ Katie Peebles argues that Gower sets the ‘Tale of the Three Questions’ in Spain to comment simultaneously on contemporary Anglo-Iberian relations and domestic politics. The tale’s elevation of the daughter, Peronelle, to the aristocracy resonates with John of Gaunt’s political and military efforts in Castile and an English aristocratic identity that is in large...