Bohemian Gower

Abstract

The English poet John Gower has long been recognized as a Ricardian, that is, a poet in the artistic orbit of England’s King Richard II. This essay explores the importance of Richard’s Queen Anne of Bohemia as a patron in her own right and even more essential than her spouse to the special qualities of Gower’s Confessio Amantis. Anne’s pervasive presence in Gower’s English masterpiece is discovered in its engagement with the legacy of Machaut, especially his two judgment poems, Le Jugement dou roi de Behaingne and its “palinode,” Le Jugement dou roi de Navarre. These poems were dedicated (respectively) to Anne’s grandfather John of Luxembourg and (mostly likely) her aunt Bonne, the latter referenced through honorific wordplay on her name. Gower pays homage to Anne with the traditional pun on her name (in the tale of Alcestis, a figure also associated with Anne in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women), the honor paid to Bohemian culture, and most important, the prominence of good women (especially faithful wives) throughout the Confessio. The final section delves deeper into the literary strategies and ethics of love as embodied by the English poem, especially its commonalities to the defense of women in Machaut’s Navarre.