John Gower

1. John Gower 1330-1408

2. ConfessioAmantis • Dated roughly 1392-1393, although it is likely that Gower wrote the first recension or version a few years earlier. • A “hybrid” genre, like many English narrative poems from the 14th century: it is a dream vision, a story collection, and a consolation poem, with elements of political allegory.

3. Medieval dream-vision • One of the most common late medieval genres, includes Dante’s Divine Comedy; Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, House of Fame, Parliament of Fowls; Langland’s Piers Plowman. • The title pretty much says it all: involves a first-person narrator recounting a vision he’s had in the form of a dream. This is thus a highly flexible form that allows the author wide scope to allegorize, represent the inner feelings of a character, or to present indirectly social satire or political critique.

4. Story Collections • Not really a genre so much as a form: shorter tales or episode linked together in a longer series. Some have little or no framework tying the various tales together; others have well-developed frame narratives.

5. Story Collections • Boccaccio’s Decameron (Italian, 1350-53): • Prologue: essentially a description of the Bubonic Plague. • Frame narrative: seven women and three men, nobles all, flee Florence to seek refuge from the disease in a country villa for ten days. They decide that each of them will tell one story on one of the nights they must pass there. The frame characters converse and interact with each other, but they are consistently polite and courteous, as befits a leisured company of equals.

6. Story Collections • Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1390-1400) • More on this later…

7. Story Collections • Gower’s ConfessioAmantis: • External Matter/Prologue: medieval estates satire • Frame narrative: opens with Amans(Latin for lover, but also a pun— “A man’s…”) languishing in a forest; he is suffering from unrequited love and calls on Venus and Cupid to help him. Venus appears and, upon hearing that Amansis about to die from love-sickness, announces that he must first make his confession and be shriven (i.e., die with a purified soul). Enter Genius, the personification of reason, productive or “kinde” love and arbiter of common profit, who will hear Amans’ confession and provide instruction on how to heal his soul. • Eight “Books” follow in which Genius and Amans dialogue: Genius defines each of the seven deadly sins and asks Amans to reflect on whether he is guilty of each one. To help him figure it out, Genius illustrates each sin with multiple stories taken from classic mythology, history, romance, and folklore. Book 7 inserts an “education of princes” section, and Book 8 concludes the confession with a consideration of lechery.

8. Medieval Estates (in theory) • Society arranged hierarchically according to occupation: • 1. The Church: those who pray Pope Cardinals  Archbishops BishopsPriests DeaconsLaity • 2. Nobility (knights, secular rulers): those who fight • 3. Peasants: those who work • Supra-hierarchy: The Great Chain of Being • Godangelshumansanimalsplantsrocks • Sub-hierarchy: • Menwomenchildren

9. Medieval Estates (in reality) • By the later medieval period, this neat, tripartite structure began to break down with the growth and increasing political power of the merchant class: those who bought, sold, traded, and made money. By the end of the 14th century, merchants wielded significant political power in urban centres but did not fit into any traditional governing strata. • In addition, medieval governmental structures became increasingly bureaucratized and thus “modern,” while the universities and the Inns of Court (where lawyers trained and lived) gave rise to new professions by producing educated men who were not destined to careers in the church—lawyers, for example.