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Gower's vulgar tongue: Ovid, lay religion, and English poetry in the Confessio amantis

2012; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 49; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.49-6740

1943-5975

Historical and Linguistic Studies

choice write in McCabe argues, is reflective of the poem's ambitious new moral project, define a lay spirituality, accessible a vernacular audience, free of clergial mediation, and focused on the immanence and accessibility of grace. McCabe's thesis touches on virtually every important issue in the recent criticism of the CA, and he can be found both drawing from and also drawing careful distinction from such scholars as Middleton, Simpson, Scanlon, Copeland, Wetherbee, and Mitchell, among several others. His argument is both wide-ranging and very closely grounded in the text, and it offers a novel view of what might be considered some of the most familiar aspects of the poem. Chapter one, on Gower's Ovidian Voice in English, makes two main claims. First, the separate but parallel ways in which both the Prologue and the main body of the poem engage with the Metamorphoses helps establish the link between the larger concerns for moral and social reform of the former and the more personal amatory themes of the latter; and second (here following Wetherbee), Ovid provided authoritative source that could be confronted directly, without mediation. In defense of the first claim, he points the common emphasis on mutability and change (e.g. in the example of Nebuchadnezzar) and with political and psychological division. To support its link the Metamorphoses, he traces the Prologue's depiction of the fallen world the description of primal chaos with which Ovid's poem begins. He also draws interesting link between the discontinuous argument in the Prologue and the discontinuities and ruptures that mark Genius' description of love. In support of his second claim, he draws a persuasive contrast between the CA and earlier medieval moralized retellings of Ovid, which substitute the glossator's authority for the poet's. Ovid speaks us directly in the CA, McCabe asserts, and especially in the tales of metamorphosis, leaves the reader with implications that cannot be constrained even by Genius' moralization. Chapters two and three look more closely at the implications of choice write in English. In chapter two, Writing and Lay Theology, McCabe detects no attempt on part elevate the vernacular or displace the authority of Latin. form of the poem, he points out, preserves the hierarchy of languages, with Latin maintaining its position at the top. Gower chooses English as an alternative medium, not only appropriate the subject matter but also, both because of its marginal status and because of the much broader implicit audience, likely achieve quite different results (89). One difference can be seen in the more reserved claims Gower makes in the opening of the CA about the reliability of the medium and the effectiveness of books, compared, for instance, passages in VC. A more revealing difference lies in his treatment of theological subjects in the CA, which in contrast both of earlier long poems are less abstract, less concerned with the subtleties of doctrine, and more indebted the liturgy than academic or clerical discourse, emphasizing works and due observance of traditional church practices, . . . the core of lay religious (95). In chapter three, At the Limits of Clerical Discourse, he extends the argument embrace the other expository sections of the poem, notably Book VII and the discussion of the history of the sciences in Book IV, in both of which he finds a similar tentativeness, awareness of their belatedness with regard Latin, a similar refusal draw upon clerical discourse, either replace it or claim its authority, and a similar accommodation his vernacular audience. But far from being forced by circumstance, McCabe insists, Gower embraces his role as burel clerk (which he glosses as lay, 68) and betrays his enthusiasm for the intimate power available in the mother tongue (101). In all three long poems, Gower appeals the vox populi and he criticizes the clergy, and he shows himself equally eager in all three poems revitalize Christian doctrine of self and society (116) by finding out alternatives clerical (121). McCabe finds the key method in the CA in the two most explicitly theological tales in Books I and II (which also provide their conclusions), The Three Questions and Constantine and Sylvester. first is marked by the inversion of weak and strong and by the exaltation of Humility, following the example of Christ, the paradox of whose incarnation (the doctrine of kenosis) was important theme in other fourteenth-century vernacular religious texts (121). Constantine and Sylvester privileges bodies and actions over ideas and doctrines (138). Together, the two tales provide a model for both the elevation of the vernacular and for the constitution of accessible vernacular theology. Chapters four and five seek define more precisely the nature of the poem's vernacular spirituality by examining key sections in which theological issues are not presented as explicitly. In chapter four, Kinde Grace, McCabe returns Ovid, particularly the tales of metamorphosis, first as punishment, then as reward. These tales are significant first because in the very mystery of the transformations they invite a readerly response that is primarily affective and that cannot be contained by Genius' attempt moralize, and second, because of the vagueness of agency yet the essential rightness of the outcome, they seem display the immanence of in Nature, which is also say that it is constantly present and accessible without the mediation of clergy. Love, implicated in Nature, is also shown be linked grace, but by way neither of allegory nor of moral prescription. Rather, by emphasizing the provisional character of earthly love, these particular stories keep earthly love as their primary concern, but they additionally sacralize this love, thus encouraging readers see spiritual realities that lie less beyond any textual sensus literalis than beyond earthly love itself (190). In chapter five, Ethics, Art, and Grace, McCabe turns the conclusion the poem, and he offers a reading of Amans' beau retret that reconciles his failure achieve his love with the essentially optimistic theology of the rest of the poem. Amans' confession is marked in part by his effort learn the of love that will enable him find success. final and longest tale of the poem, Apollonius of Tyre, is also concerned with art, the to not just of achieving love but also of ruling a kingdom; and it demonstrates how humans grow wiser through experience. tale is also dominated by chance and unpredictability beyond the control of the best efforts of any human. happy ending is brought about by Providence, acting, finally, in cooperation with the virtuous efforts of the characters. On its own, is inefficacious because good fortune does not depend finally on learning. However, in its penultimate movement through the wanderings of Apollonius, the poems affirms as a necessary coadjutor with providence a kind of learning that is reduced the status of improvisatory, inherently fallible art (214-15). Such a trajectory provides a model for the final experience of Amans, whose lack of success with is lady is a reminder that failure is part of learning, and that no can guarantee success. Amans' impotence is his final disqualification for love, and as such, it stands as a figure for all earthly love. But the ending is also a demonstration of the mysteriousness of grace, as Amans' rejection by Venus opens the way a love that mai noght faile (CA VIII.2086). McCabe's conclusion emphasizes the oblique didacticism (227) yet strong moral commitment of middel weie. Gower's love ethic, like Ovid's, celebrates its evasion of textual capture, but ends not in despair but in grace (230). McCabe's argument attributes both a greater subtlety and a greater complexity the CA than we are accustomed as it stakes out its own middel weie among recent readings of moral project. It is going help shape our discussion of the poem for many years come. [PN. Copyright JGN 31.2]