Ethics, Rhetorical Accommodation, and Vernacularity in Gower’s Confessio Amantis

357 Pages·2010·1.51 MB·English

by  T. Matthew N. McCabe

Ethics, Rhetorical Accommodation, and Vernacularity
in Gower’s Confessio Amantis

by

T. Matthew N. McCabe

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy,
Graduate Department of the Centre for Medieval Studies,
in the University of Toronto

© by T. Matthew N. McCabe
Ethics, Rhetorical Accommodation, and Vernacularity in Gower’s Confessio Amantis
T. Matthew N. McCabe
Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
2010

Abstract

Many critics have seen Confessio Amantis as a work of reformist rhetoric that, drawing
deeply on medieval Aristotelian conflations of ethics and politics, urges readers toward personal
moral reform as the crucial means by which to heal the body politic. In such a view, the moral
and public interests on full display in Mirour de l’Omme, Vox Clamantis, and elsewhere remain
central to Gower’s purpose in Confessio. However, while Mirour and Vox also foreground
religious concerns, Confessio is often seen as “secular” in a modern sense.
I argue in this dissertation that Confessio indeed bears strong affinities to Gower’s other
religious-ethical-political works, and that the main differences that set it apart from them must be
understood in connection with Gower’s decision to write this work “in oure Englissh.”
Notwithstanding its debt to aristocratic culture, Confessio imagines a broader and more popular
audience than do Vox and Mirour. Gower’s novel language choice has major implications
especially for Confessio’s uncharacteristically delicate handling of religion.
Chapter 1 examines Confessio’s Ovidian debt and suggests that Confessio’s many
invocations of Metamorphoses, given that poem’s fourteenth-century reception, align Confessio
with Ovidian universal satire in a way that suggests totalizing religious-ethical-political
synthesis. However, Confessio departs from the mainstream of fourteenth-century commentated
Ovids by stripping Metamorphoses of its clergial patina and, crucially, adopting a markedly lay
stance.
Investigating Gower’s attitude to English vernacularity, chapter 2 notes Confessio’s

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association of translation with decay and demonstrates that scientific and theological passages in
Gower’s English works adopt a lower register than analogous passages in his Latin works.
Chapter 3 investigates the probable causes of these downward modulations, comparing Gower’s
sense of linguistic decorum to those discernible in contemporary English vernacular theology.
Chapters 4 and 5—on metamorphosis and art, respectively—argue that Gower finds in
Ovidian writing rich resources particularly adaptable to the most delicate of Gower’s rhetorical
tasks in Confessio: to address, as layman, a lay audience on matters that are unavoidably, and
indeed largely, religious. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that Gower’s voice of lay
religious critique plays an important role in the histories of laicization and secularization.

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Acknowledgments

It would be hard to find a PhD supervisor who more perfectly combines judgment,
curiosity, knowledge, energy, and generosity than Professor Suzanne Akbari, whose eagerness to
discuss new possibilities for research on medieval literature is already legendary; I am extremely
grateful for her guidance through every stage of my doctoral studies. I am also very grateful to
Professor Ruth Harvey and Professor Will Robins for offering criticism and support without
which I could not have written this thesis. I thank Professor Nicholas Watson of Harvard
University for invaluable criticism, encouragement, and suggestions for future research.
Although unfortunate circumstances prevented her from being present at my defense, I am
grateful to Professor Alex Gillespie for serving as my internal examiner and offering insightful
comments. Thanks are also due to the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the University of Toronto
Fellowship, the Colin Chase Memorial Award, and the John Leyerle Scholarship for financial
support. With joy, I thank my colleagues at Ambrose University College, especially Tim Heath
and Rita Dirks Heath, for graciously easing my way as I adjusted to life in Calgary and assumed
full teaching responsibilities during 2008-2009. Nick, Max, and of course Dad and Mom
especially, have blessed me in countless ways throughout my long education, and I am deeply
grateful. As for Holly, the love of my life, she has suffered more on account of this project and
done more to support it than words can tell. Clearly the God of love and peace is more than
kynde.

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Note on Abbreviations and Editions

All references to the Confessio Amantis are from John Gower, The English Works, ed. G.
C. Macaulay, EETS e.s. 81-82 (1900-1901; rpt. London: Oxford University Press, 1969). The
tales of the Confessio are referred to by the titles assigned by Macaulay, though with occasional
modifications. Quotations of Gower’s other works are from The Complete Works of John Gower,
ed. G. C. Macaulay, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899-1901), unless otherwise noted. All
citations of the Latin Bible are from Biblia Sacra Vulgatae Editionis Sixti V Pontificis Maximi
Jussu Recognita et Clementis VIII Auctoritate Edita, Nova Editio Accuratissime Emendata
(Paris: Garnier Fratres, 1868), translated as The Holy Bible Translated from the Latin Vulgate
(Douay, A.D. 1609: Rheims, A.D. 1582). London: Catholic Truth Society, 1956. The following
abbreviations are used in the text. For classical and medieval texts, in cases where only one
edition was consulted, full bibliographical information, not given in the text, may be found in the
Bibliography.

BD Chaucer, Book of the Duchess
EETS e.s. Early English Text Society, Extra Series
EETS o.s. Early English Text Society, Original Series
ELN English Language Notes
JGN John Gower Newsletter
LGW Chaucer, Legend of Good Women
Macaulay, Works Gower, John. The Complete Works. Ed. George C. Macaulay. 4 vols.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899-1901.
MED Middle English Dictionary.
Met. Ovid, Metamorphoses
NPT Chaucer, Nun’s Priest’s Tale
OED Oxford English Dictionary
Peck, Confessio Gower, John. Confessio Amantis. Ed. Russell A. Peck, with Latin
translations by Andrew Galloway. 3 vols. Kalamazoo, MI: TEAMS, 2000-
2004.
PF Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls
PL Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina. Paris, 1844-
1864.
PriT Chaucer, The Prioress’ Tale
SAC Studies in the Age of Chaucer

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ST Aquinas, Summa Theologica
SumT Chaucer, The Summoner’s Tale

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Contents

Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iv
Note on Abbreviations and Editions v

Introduction 1

1 Ovidian Indirection and the Voice of the Confessio
Introduction 22
1.1 “Upon a weer”: The Shape of the Confessio 23
1.2 Division at the Centre: Equivocations about Love 51
1.3 Going Public With Ovid 65
Conclusion 98

2 Clerical Discourse and the Problem of the Vernacular
Introduction 100
2.1 The Idea of Vernacular Translation 101
2.2 Theology in English and Latin 115
Conclusion 140

3 At the Limits of Clerical Discourse: Gower and “lewed clergie”
Introduction 141
3.1 Genius and “lewed clergie” 142
3.2 Gower’s “burel clerk” and Other Lay Voices 159
3.3 Incarnation and the Vernacular: “The Three Questions”
and “Constantine and Silvester” 170
Conclusion 192

4 Kinde Grace: Metamorphosis and Accommodation
Introduction 195
4.1 Metamorphosis and Accommodation 196
4.2 Unkynde Punishments, Kynde Equivocations 206
4.3 Metamorphosis as Reward: Between Nature and Grace 235
Conclusion 264

5 Art, Ethics, and Grace
Introduction 266
5.1 Ethics, Art, and Textual “Experience” 266
5.2 Chance, Art, and Grace: “Apollonius of Tyre” 280
5.3 The Laughter of Venus 296
Conclusion 309

Conclusion: Gower, Vernacularity, and Lay Religion 311

Bibliography 322

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Introduction
Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1390-92) begins with a Prologue of more than one thousand
lines meditating on the world’s present state of moral disarray.1 This comes as no surprise from
the poet whose earlier works include the Mirour de l’Omme (complete c. 1379), a long poem that
combines Christian psychomachy, estates satire, and meditation on the life of Mary, and the Vox
Clamantis (substantially complete c. 1386), a voluminous estates satire, both of which treat
questions of public and private morality that were current in late fourteenth-century England.2
Indeed, Gower advertises the Confessio’s continuity with his earlier works. He represents his
major works as a kind of trilogy, since the three are described together in the “Quia
vnusquisque” colophon, which appears as a kind of literary autobiography in enough
manuscripts to be generally accepted as authoritative.3 The three works also appear together as
the three books supporting the head of the poet’s effigy on his tomb in Southwark Cathedral,
which was probably made according to Gower’s own design,4 and, largely for this reason, John
H. Fisher judged Gower’s three main books to be “one continuous work.”5 But the Confessio

1 For the date of the Confessio, see Fisher, John Gower, 116-27.
2 For the three versions of the Vox and their approximate dates, see Fisher, John Gower, 99-108; for the more
uncertain date of the Mirour, see ibid., 95, and Yeager, “Gower’s French Audience.” By “estates satire” I mean the
species of satire which “comprises a comprehensive survey of society and its vices”; see Miller, “Satiric Poet,”
which gives this as a definition of the medieval term satira comunis (qt. 87). See further Mann, Chaucer and
Medieval Estates Satire.
3 For the text, see Macaulay, Works, 3:480. For the very likely authorial status of the Confessio’s Latin apparatus,
see Pearsall, “Latin and Vernacular,” 14 (“Quia Vnusquisque” is discussed at 24-25); for Macaulay’s discussion of
the “Quia vnusquisque,” see Works, 2:clviii and 3:550. For more recent assessment of the “Quia vnusquisque,” see
Echard, “Last Words”; and Gower, Minor Latin Works, ed. Yeager, 71. For a survey and catalogue of Gower MSS,
see Pearsall, “Manuscripts”; and idem, “Descriptive Catalogue” (ongoing). In general, the manuscript tradition for
Gower’s works is highly consistent, enough for Fisher to speculate about Gower’s employment of a scriptorium at
St. Mary Overeys (John Gower, 66, 116-17, 124-27, and 303-06), although Doyle and Parkes argue that more likely
Gower “contracted with independent scribes and limners” (“Production of Copies,” 200).
4 Gower’s tomb, in the north aisle of the cathedral, contains a recumbent effigy of the poet, whose head is supported
by images of the three books. See Fisher, John Gower, 38. Since Gower contributed to the reconstruction of St.
Mary Overeys, as the church was then known (ibid. 58), it is likely this monument was commissioned by him as
well. As of June 2009, an image and a brief description of the monument are available at
http://www.southwark.anglican.org/cathedral/tour/gower.htm.
5 Fisher, John Gower, 135. A third suggestion that the works were originally seen as a kind of trilogy comes from
the short poem, sent to Gower by an anonymous “philosopher,” comparing Gower’s three works to Virgil’s Aeneid,
B ucolics, and Georgics; see Macaulay, Works, 4:361.

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itself registers important discontinuities which set it apart from Gower’s earlier works.6 At the
beginning of Book I, Gower suddenly pushes aside the political themes of the Prologue. Since he
cannot of his own will “setten al in evene,” he announces he will change the “stile”—and, he
implies, the matter—of his writing, and turn from the matter of contemporary mores to the
matter of love (1-15). The poem that follows is indeed a change from the two earlier estates
satires, especially in Gower’s choice of English (the Mirour and the Vox were written in the
more prestigious languages, French and Latin, respectively), in the poem’s greater use of the
narrative mode (as opposed to didactic predication, which the earlier poems relied on more
heavily), in its commitment to a new subject, love, and in its more elaborate use of speaking
personae.
I argue in this thesis that the Confessio does indeed bear strong affinities to Gower’s
earlier Mirour and Vox, and that the main differences that set the Confessio apart from these
works should be understood in connection with Gower’s decision—for him a novel one—to
write a work on this scale in English.7 Notwithstanding its exalted dedications to Richard II and
later to Henry of Lancaster (Pr.23*-75*; 86-89), and the unmistakable “de luxe” quality of the
poem’s first manuscripts,8 the Confessio imagines an audience that is on the whole less
aristocratic than that of the Mirour and less learned than that of the Vox.9 Gower’s imagined
English audience may be elitist in the limited sense that it celebrates courtliness and gentility
more prominently than did the earlier works, although, as we will see in 1.3, even these values

6 For the fullest argument to-date for the fundamental distinctiveness of the Confessio, see Nicholson, Love and
Ethics, 3-40; this is discussed below and in 1.1.
7 While some recent accounts, and esp. Echard, “With Carmen’s Help,” emphasize the poem’s bilingualism, I insist
on its Englishness for reasons given below.
8 See below.
9 For an argument that Gower intended the Mirour initially for an aristocratic and later for a monastic audience, see
Yeager, “Gower’s French Audience”; but see also Fisher, John Gower, 92. For the aristocratic audience of portions
of the Vox, see Yeager, “Politics and the French Language, 138-46; and Carlson, “Early Latin Poetry,” 294-97. The
public quality of the audience of the Confessio is discussed below.

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were undergoing a popularization among England’s upwardly mobile “merchant class” at this
time. More importantly, however, Gower’s English audience encompasses a much wider public,
and thus is far more popular than the audiences of the two earlier poems. Gower’s decision to
write “in oure englissh” (Pr.23; cf. VIII.3108) is important in two ways. To the extent—greater, I
believe, than some recent accounts have allowed—that Gower’s poem can be said to convey a
“message” of public moral reform, Gower’s employment of the vernacular shapes this
“message” by causing a shift in register downwards, and other rhetorical accommodations, as
befit a broader, more populist and lay audience. My interest in this dynamic accounts for the
“ethics” and “rhetorical accommodation” in the title of this thesis. But the third term in the title,
“vernacularity,” testifies to profounder currents in Gower’s thought that complicate the poem’s
“ethics” far beyond the status of a “message,” and “rhetorical accommodation” far beyond a
matter of packaging. Medieval definitions of the “vernacular” stress openness, publicity, and
access, things which Gower associates with “englissh,” as we will see.10 Accordingly, Gower’s
adoption of the vernacular for literary purposes is caught up with profound reflections, not only
on the practicalities of how he might transmit knowledge, and especially moral wisdom, to a
broad English audience without violating linguistic and social decorum, but also on the very
necessity and meaning of mediation, and on the implications of this for lay experience.
I speak of the poem’s “message” cautiously, and with quotation marks, since the poem is
by no means reducible to a message. Criticism during the last twenty five years has emphasized
the poem’s diversity, incoherence, and even tendency to disintegration. Peter Nicholson has
thoroughly documented the “breadth and comprehensiveness of its examination of love” and the
complexity and “ingenuity” of its form.11 More disquietingly, Hugh White sees Gower’s

10 For discussion, see esp. Minnis, Translations of Authority, 1-16; and Watson, “Cultural Changes,” 131-32.
11 Nicholson, Love and Ethics, 69, 71.

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