Responses to the Frame Narrative of John Gower's Confessio Amantis in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Scottish Literature

Abstract

Martin surveys the few tantalizing references to the existence of MSS of the Confessio in before 1600. From them she infers that Gower's poetry known and was regarded appropriate reading matter, or at least a fashionable addition to the library, for the intellectual elite, and the landed but also urban classes of late medieval and early modern Scotland (563). bulk of her essay, however, is concerned with tracing the influence of the CA in three Scottish works, each of which use it in a different but equally informed way. anonymous prose of Luf (1492) is framed a dialogue between an old knight and his son on the dangers of the latter's subjection to love. lessons, with their accompanying exempla, are divided into eight sections. epilogue contains several detailed recollections of the ending of the Confessio. As the aged narrator abandons the didactic role of the main body of the poem, moreover, the ending recalls some of the ambivalences of Gower's conclusion and even confronts the uncomfortable prospect considered by Gower . . . that maturity does not always bring a natural release form moral waywardness (567). reactions of the younger man to his father's lessons also recalls the stubborn persistence in love of Gower's Amans. Both works therefore ultimately question the usefulness of the advisory genres to which belong, foregrounding the power of readers to deflect the instructional intentions of authors in pursuit of validation of their own desires (569), and also draw a link between a lack self-governance in the ruler or ruling class and the resultant dangers of social disorder. Gavin Douglas' of Honour (c. 1501) actually mentions Gower (in the company of Chaauer and Lydgate) by name. part 1, the narrator's encounter with contains recollections both of the opening of the CA and of Gower's Tale of Rosiphelee. Like Gower, Douglas portrays his narrator as one drawn perilously to the attractions of Venus's court, yet highly unsuitable for it, and unwelcome to its deity (572), though the result is the narrator's rejection of love rather than a supplication for Venus's aid. And the narrator's second encounter with Venus, in part 3, recalls the conclusion to Gower's poem. In both Confessio and Palice of Honour, . . . the narrators are urged to use their literary skills in more fitting ways than writing about erotic love, in the service, respectively, of moral virtue and virtuous honour (574). John Rolland's Court of Venus (c. 1560) also cites Gower by name, invoking him an authority on how to avoid the dangers of subjection to Venus. It also imitates Gower in its conclusion, the elderly narrator is expelled from Venus's court, but like The Spectacle of Luf, it returns to the problematic implications of the close of the Confessio Amantis (576) that stories like those told by Genius rarely succeed in convincing lovers to reform themselves, and it leaves the reader with the problematic image of the poet-narrator the reluctant outcast from Venus's court rather than the source of moral and ethical exemplarity (576). Each of these three works also draws from other authors and not constitute a tradition, but Martin notes in her conclusion, they do give a clear indication of a Scottish habit of reading the Confessio that does not have an exact equivalent in contemporary English literature (577). [PN. Copyright. John Gower Society. JGN 29.2]