Calling: Langland, Gower, and Chaucer on Saint Paul

Abstract

Calling embraces both summoning (or vocation) and naming, not only in Modern English but also in Middle English (by way of verb clepen) and in Latin vocare, as used, for instance, in Vulgate in 1 Corinthians 7:20, ultimate source for many of passages that Davis discusses: Unusquisque in qua vocatione vocatus est, in ea permaneat. Davis explores notion of calling in four late fourteenth-century texts (Piers Plowman, Vox Clamantis, House of Fame, and of Bath's Prologue and Tale), countering, along way, Weber's oversimplification of pre-Lutheran notions of calling, especially with regard to significance of activity in world and possibility of salvation for those in secular life. Instead of earthly names and estates being naturalized, fixed, and God-given, or alternatively, alien and anathema to God, God temporarily suffers imperfect human 'callings' at same time that he issues his own call. Thus, although human and divine 'callings' are not identical, they are also not necessarily distinguishable and in fact often coincide; as such, characters within these poems, and sometimes poems themselves, do not always disambiguate them (55). Davis's analysis expands to include discussion of vs. possession and precept vs. counsel, and it perhaps offers its richest insight into WB and PP, especially where she draws parallels between Wife and Langland's Will. Her discussion of VC centers on narrator's role in Book I. Taking issue with those who, conflating poet and narrator, blame Gower for disturbing allegorical depiction of revolting peasants as animals in vision in Book I, Davis emphasizes how the poem reframes its invective as self-scrutiny (80). Wisdom, exercising role similar to that of Conscience in PP C XXI, alerts narrator to call to redemption and does achieve his contrition, which is signaled by his kneeling. This call forces two related recognitions on part of narrator: first, that and storm are divine instruments and, second, that target of God's displeasure is narrator himself, who, despite having fled terrors of revolt, has internalized and carries it within: he is revolt. . . . In recognition of his own sinfulness, Gower's narrator evacuates cavities of his heart. This thorough cardiac examination enables him to hear, on or over wind, divine voice to which Wisdom has already alerted him. Once storm has subsided, . . . narrator kneels in thanks . . . . The narrator's contrition and prayers, which culminate in this act of kneeling, are turning point around which whole poem pivots. . . . His own crying to God and God's answering call produce an antiphonal that emerges from, rather than being antithetical to, tumult of other calls, which together constitute revolt (79-81). Elsewhere, Davis describes both narrator's loss of his own voice and Gower's well-known use of words of other poets as acts of kenosis, in imitation of Christ's setting aside of his divinity upon assuming human form, as described by Paul in Philippians 2:5-11 (85-88). She concludes by setting side by side ending of VC and close of Alain de Lille's Anticlaudianus (91-97), illustrating a commitment [in Gower's, Langland's, and Chaucer's work] . . . to imagine--although perpetually defer--the spiritual recoverability of imperfect life (97). This subtle and wide-ranging essay deserves to be read in full. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 32.2]