European Languages and Societies Commons^™

John Gower: The Minor Latin Works, Robert J. Meindl, Mark T. Riley

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A translation, with introductions, of the minor Latin works of John Gower.

Gower In Exile, Joel Fredell

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The articles in Hope and Healing reveal John Gower's interest in an inclusive approach to human suffering, but also a clear-eyed look at its suffering. The experience of Amans in the Confessio Amantis, exiled from the love court of Venus, represents a powerful vision of love-agony as a central form of human suffering, not a cliche of love poetry.

The Unfinished Hope Of Gower's Transgender Children, Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski

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This article examines two of Gower's tales from the Confessio Amantis that deal with trans youths: Iphis and Narcissus. Considering these two tales together, I ask the question: why does one story end with hopeful futurity for the trans masculine youth and the other end with death and the absence of futurity for the trans feminine youth. Connecting these medieval texts to premodern contexts and then with modern contexts, I map the trajectory of centuries long problems facing trans youths. In the end, I conclude that trans youth possess a healthier and more stable future when they receive trans affirming …

Gower´S Queer Poetics In The Mirour De L'Omme, María Bullón-Fernández

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Gower's Queer Poetics in the Mirour de l'Omme

In the Mirour de l’Omme John Gower describes the allegorical Sins as both deceitful and “hermafrodrite” and later confesses to having engaged in queer practices in his earlier courtly poetry. Gower’s confession and his association of the Sins with intersexuality, I will argue, do not entail ultimately a rejection of queer poetics. In his Life of the Virgin Mary, the final part of the Mirour, Gower deploys a different kind of queer poetics, one that acknowledges the indeterminacies of language but still seeks to stabilize meaning, while intertwining male and female.

Narcissus In Queer Time, Lacey M. Wolfer

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Queer temporality has been studied in relation to the Middle Ages as a means of questioning the prevailing historiography for other modes of connection to the past, such as embodied or affective. Conversely, the other branch of queer temporality has been primarily interested in how queer lifestyles today disrupt the heteronormative plan laid out by society. Joining these modes, Gower’s revision of Narcissus questions our notions of historiography through showing us an example of a queer, transgender character and his struggles with heteronormative expectations—demonstrating that the medieval is not so disconnected from the modern.

One Voice, Ancient And Resigned, Will Rogers

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While we know, or at least can imagine, what Gower looked like in his old age, it is hard to imagine or hear his voice. And yet, given what we know about his old age and visual impairments, his voice necessarily was important to his old age and continuing revisions of his texts. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct from some of his later poetry what that voice might have sounded like, at least in-text, and piece together how later authors heard that voice of old age.

“Als Wel The Lord As The Schepherde, He Broghte Hem Alle In Good Accord”: Harmonious Materialism In The Confessio Amantis, Roger A. Ladd

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Using R. F. Yeager's analysis of the figure Arion as a starting point, this article argues that in the Confessio Amantis, John Gower shifts his impulse toward social correction from direct estates satire to a more subtle approach encoding his social critique in the love stories of the Confessio. Examples of this approach include a variety of tales from Book 5, and the Apollonius of Tyre story in Book 8. Details of the poem's ending and later works like "In Praise of Peace" indicate that Gower still retained an interest in direct critique of social problems.

Godfrey Of Viterbo’S Pantheon And John Gower’S Confessio Amantis: The Story Of Apollonius Retold, Thari L. Zweers

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Even though Gower identifies Godfrey of Viterbo's Pantheon in the first two lines of the "Tale of Apollonius of Tyre" in Book VIII of the Confessio Amantis as the main source for his retelling of this tale, the connection between these two works has long been mostly ignored, and even denied. This essay aims to remedy this oversight by showcasing how Gower went beyond merely mentioning the Pantheon and used Godfrey's version of the tale as a thematic and stylistic model for his account of this incestuous tale of desire. Gower takes his cue from Godfrey in imbuing the titillating …

Undiagnosing Iphis: How The Lack Of Trauma In John Gower’S “Iphis And Iante” Reinforces A Subversive Trans Narrative, C Janecek

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Trauma has long played a role in queer narratives, including Ovid’s “Iphis and Ianthe”, which many scholars have interpreted as reinforcing heteronormativity through Iphis’s transformation into a man in order to marry Ianthe. However, I argue that John Gower’s rendition of this tale reframes Iphis as a trans man and allows us to understand the poem as a subversive trans narrative that revolts against cisnormative conceptions of gender. Utilizing Judith Butler’s writing on the medicalization of gender, I explore the relationship between trauma, performance, and gender within the Ovidian and Gowerian versions of Iphis.

Unconfessing Transgender: Dysphoric Youths And The Medicalization Of Madness In John Gower’S “Tale Of Iphis And Ianthe”, M W. Bychowski

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On the brink of the twenty-first century, Judith Butler argues in “Undiagnosing Gender” that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) defines the psychiatric condition of “Gender Identity Disorder” (or “Gender Dysphoria”) in ways that control biological diversity and construct “transgender” as a marginalized identity. By turning the study of gender away from vulnerable individuals and towards the broader systems of power, Butler works to liberate bodies from the medical mechanisms managing difference and precluding potentially disruptive innovations in forms of life and embodiment by creating categories of gender and disability.

Turning to the brink of the 15 …

Reflection, Interrupted: Material Mirror Work In The Confessio Amantis, Jenny Boyar

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The Confessio Amantis concludes with a revelatory scene in which Venus holds up a mirror to Amans, allowing him to recognize John Gower the poet— a moment that is often read as a mimetic and healing counterpoint to the Confessio’s sickness and self-questioning. My intention in this paper is to very slightly modify certain aspects of this narrative, to consider how the materiality of the mirror can inform its metaphoric deployments in the Confessio. I organize my discussion around two seemingly contrasting moments in the poem in which the self is seen and in different ways recognized through …

Semper Venalis: Gower's Avaricious Lawyers, Robert Meindl

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The first three chapters of the sixth book of the Vox Clamantis (lines 1-248) comprise a harsh critique of the many avaricious lawyers who, in Gower’s opinion, have come to dominate their profession to the disadvantage of English society in the late fourteenth century. Driven exclusively by their appetite for possessions, they have forgotten the biblical model presented in Psalm 14 that specifies the obligation of the good man to assist without recompense his neighbor’s search for justice. Falsely claiming to be men of law and inheritors of the biblical model of the good man, the causidici (as Gower calls …