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New essays on aspects of Gower's poetry, viewed through the lens of
the self and beyond. The topics of "selfhood" and "otherness" lie
at the heart of these new assessments of John Gower's poetry. The
first part of the book, on knowing the self and others, focuses on
cognition, brain functions, imagination, and the internal and
external factors that affect one's sense of being, from sensation
and inner emotive effects within body parts to cosmic perspectives,
morality, and theology as voiced by language and storytelling. The
second, on the essence of strangers, explores the interconnections
of sensation and aesthetics; it also considers kinds of social
dysfunction, whether through racial or gender conflict, or
religious and political warfare.The final part of the booklooks at
social ethics and ethical poets, reassessing two of Gower's
perpetual concerns: honest government and honest craft. It
considers Gower as a constitutional thinker, whether in terms of
law, judicial corruption, or a society of businessmen who would
rewrite ethics in terms of business models. It concludes with an
examination of the Confessio in the culture of Portugal and Spain.
Russell Peck is the John Hall Deane Professor of English at the
University of Rochester: R. F. Yeager is Professor of English at
the University of West Florida. Contributors: Stephanie L. Batkie,
Helen Cooper, Brian W. Gastle, Matthew Giancarlo, Matthew W. Irvin,
Yoshiko Kobayashi, Robert J. Meindl, Peter Nicholson, Maura Nolan,
Gabrielle Parkin, Russell A. Peck, Ana Saez-Hidalgo, Larry Scanlon,
Karla Taylor, Kim Zarins, R.F. Yeager,
Essays shedding fresh and significant light on Gower's poetry,
major and minor, as it was received, read, and re-produced in
England and in Iberia from the fourteenth to the twentieth
centuries. John Gower's great poem, the Confessio Amantis, was the
first work of English literature translated into any European
language. Occasioned by the existence in Spain of fifteenth-century
Portuguese and Spanish manuscripts ofthe Confessio, the nineteen
essays brought together here represent new and original approaches
to Gower's role in Anglo-Iberian literary relations. They include
major studies of the palaeography of the Iberian manuscripts;of the
ownership history of the Portuguese Confessio manuscript; of the
glosses of Gowerian manuscripts; and of the manuscript of the Yale
Confessio Amantis. Other essays situate the translations amidst
Anglo-Spanish relations generally in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries; examine possible Spanish influences on Gower's writing;
and speculate on possible providers of the Confessio to Philippa,
daughter of John of Gaunt and queenof Portugal. Further chapters
broaden the scope of the volume. Amongst other topics, they look at
Gower's use of Virgilian/Dantean models; classical gestures in the
Castilian translation; Gower's conscious contrasting of epic ideals
and courtly romance; nuances of material goods and the idea of "the
good" in the Confessio; Marxian aesthetics, Balzac, and Gowerian
narrative in late medieval trading culture between England and
Iberia; reading the Confessio through the lens of gift exchange;
literary form in Gower's later Latin poems; Gower and Alain
Chartier as international initiators of a new "public poetry"; and
the modern sales history of manuscript and earlyprinted copies of
the Confessio, and what it reveals about literary trends. Ana Saez
Hidalgo is Associate Professor at the University of Valladolid,
Spain; R.F. Yeager is Professor of English and World Languagesand
chair of the department at the University of West Florida.
Contributors: Maria Bullon-Fernandez, David R. Carlson, Sian
Echard, A.S.G. Edwards, Robert R. Edwards, Tiago Viula de Faria,
Andrew Galloway, Fernando Galvan, Marta Maria Gutierrez Rodriguez,
Mauricio Herrero Jimenez, Ethan Knapp, Roger A. Ladd, Alberto
Lazaro, Maria Luisa Lopez-Vidriero Abello, Matthew McCabe, Alastair
J. Minnis, Clara Pascual-Argente, Tamara Para A. Shailor, Winthrop
Wetherbee
New essays demonstrate Gower's mastery of the three languages of
medieval England, and provide a thorough exploration of the voices
he used and the discourses in which he participated. John Gower
wrote in three languages - Latin, French, and English - and their
considerable and sometimes competing significance in
fourteenth-century England underlies his trilingualism. The essays
collected in this volume start from Gower as trilingual poet,
exploring Gower's negotiations between them - his adaptation of
French sources into his Latin poetry, for example - as well as the
work of medieval translators who made Gower's French poetry
availablein English. "Translation" is also considered more broadly,
as a "carrying over" (its etymological sense) between genres,
registers, and contexts, with essays exploring Gower's acts of
translation between the idioms of varied literary and non-literary
forms; and further essays investigate Gower's writings from
literary, historical, linguistic, and codicological perspectives.
Overall, the volume bears witness to Gower's merit and his
importance to English literary history, and increases our
understanding of French and Latin literature composed in England;
it also makes it possible to understand and to appreciate fully the
shape and significance of Gower's literary achievement and
influence, which have sometimes suffered in comparison to Chaucer.
ELISABETH DUTTON is Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.
Contributors: Elisabeth Dutton, Jean Pascal Pouzet, Ethan Knapp,
Carolyn P. Collette,Elliot Kendall, Robert R. Edwards, George
Shuffleton, Nigel Saul, David Carlson, Candace Barrington, Andreea
Boboc, Tamara F. O'Callaghan, Stephanie Batkie, Karla Taylor, Brian
Gastle, Matthew Irvin, Peter Nicholson, J.A. Burrow,Holly
Barbaccia, Kim Zarins, Richard F. Green, Cathy Hume, John Bowers,
Andrew Galloway, R.F. Yeager, Martha Driver
Essays considering the relationship between Gower's texts and the
physical ways in which they were first manifested. The media in
which Gower's works were first transmitted, whether in print of
manuscript form, are of vital importance to an understanding of
both the poet and his audience. However, in comparison with those
of his contemporary Chaucer, they have been relatively little
studied. This volume represents a major collaboration between
specialist scholars in manuscript and book history, and experts in
Gower more generally, breaking new ground in approaching Gower
through first-hand study of his publications in manuscript and
print. Its chapters consider such matters as manuscript and book
illumination, provenance, variant texts and editions, scribes, and
printers, looking at how, and to what degree, the materiality of
the vellum, paper, ink and binding illuminates - and even
implicates - the poet and his poetry. MARTHA DRIVER is
Distinguished Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies
at Pace University; the late DEREK PEARSALL was Gurney Professor of
English Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University; R.F. YEAGER Is
Professor of English and Foreign Languages, Emeritus, University of
West Florida. Contributors: Stephanie L. Batkie, Julia Boffey,
Margaret Connolly, Sian Echard, A.S.G. Edwards, Robert Epstein,
Brian W. Gastle, Amanda J. Gerber, Yoshiko Kobayashi, Aditi Nafde,
Tamara Perez-Fernandez, Wendy Scase, Karla Taylor, David Watt.
The theme of the `body and soul' relationship in medieval texts and
modern reworkings. The theme of the body-and-soul relationship in
medieval texts and in modern reworkings of medieval matter is
explored in the articles here, specifically the representation of
the body in romance; the relevance of bawdy tales to the cultural
experience of authors and readers in the middle ages; the function
of despair, or melancholy, in medieval and Renaissance literature;
and the political significance of late medieval representations of
`bodies' in the chroniclers' accounts of the Rising and in Gower's
poems. Two articles are devoted to modern retellings of medieval
themes: John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, seen in relation to the
traditional acta martyrum, and the medieval revival in Tory Britain
exemplified in Douglas Oliver's The Infant and the Pearl.
Contributors: PAMELA JOSEPH BENSON, NIGEL S. THOMPSON, JON WHITMAN,
JEROME MANDEL, BARBARA NOLAN, YASUNARI TAKADA, YVETTE MARCHAND,
ROBERT F. YEAGER, JOERG O. FICHTE, JOHN KERRIGAN
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