Studies in John Gower by Maria Wickert, and: John Gower’s Literary Transformations in the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations ed. by Peter G. Beidler

Abstract

SWDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER that seem quite distant from those in which they are found in Langland's poem. Conversely, Psalm 14, which is one of Langland's favorites, receives scant attention-presumably because it was not a favorite of Augustine. It might seem petty to detail such objections if Goldsmith's instincts were better than her methodology,, but unfortunately she remains stead­ fast to her principles far too often. The results are the sort of incoherence I have described and some serious misreadings of tone and content (as with the discussion of Piers and the pardon). It is distasteful to have to register such strong disapproval of a book into which a considerable amount of honest research and thought have gone and to repudiate the efforts of a scholar as diligent and fair-minded as Goldsmith seems to be. Even so, candor requires admitting that the book is one that will only confuse novices and exasperate experts. ROBERT ADAMS Sam Houston State University MARIA WICKERT, Studies injohn Gower. Translated by Robert]. Meindl. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982. Pp. xiv, 249. $19.75 hardcover, $9.75 paper. PETER G. BEIDLER, ed., John Gower's Literary Transformations in the Confessio Amantis: Ongina!Articles and Translations. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982. Pp. viii, 141. $19.75 hard­ cover, $8.25 paper. Studies in John Gower was the Habilitationsschrift of Maria Wickert (1915-59) at the University of Cologne, and was published by that institu­ tion's press under the title Studien zujohn Gower in 1953. The present volume is a translation into English of this valuable and-in 1953 particu­ larly-ground-breaking book. Wickert's primary subject is the Vox c!amantis, Gower's major work in Latin. That poem contains 10,265 lines of elegiac verse, modeled for the most part on Ovid. There are seven books, each with subdivisions and prose headings, as is Gower's manner; the first three have individual prologues also. As Wickert amply demonstrates, the 146 REVIEWS poem is an extremely intricate one, allusive, tough, and obscure by turns. Tackling it in 1953, roughly a decade before the first translation was published by Eric Stockton (The Major Latin Works ofjohn Gower [Seat­ tle: University of Washington Press, 1962]) and before John H. Fisher's watershed study of Gower's total output Uohn Gower: MoralPhilosopher andFriendofChaucer [New York: New York University Press, 1964]), was no light undertaking. It is hardly insignificant that after thirty years Wickert's study remains the only full-scale attempt to assess Gower's Latin. In every way this scholarly silence seems a pity, since the Vax clamantis is an important poem and one about which we would do well to learn more. Composed, it is thought, in the later 1370s but with subsequent additions and changes reflecting the tumultuous events of 1381 and later, the Vax is in Wickert's view a unique heterogeneity of forms skillfully crafted by Gower to advise the young King Richard II, to provide humankind with moral counsel (as is his obligation as a good Christian), to bring to light religious corruption, and-in what Wickert has termed the "Visio" partic­ ularly-to vilify the instigators of social unrest. Since this "Visio" was written quite likely while the heat of the Peasants' Revolt was still on him by a Kentishman living in London, the first book of the Vax clamantis offers us one of the few accounts by an intimately involved eyewitness. To the chagrin of various historians who have gone to the Vax seeking "facts," however, Gower's version of the revolt is emotive, expressionistic, and heavilyallegorized. Wat Tyler becomes a jaybird, SimonSudbury becomes the Trojan priest Hellenus, and other notables are transformed into as­ sorted animals and Trojans in a tortuous dream sequence whose best literary descendant is perhaps the "Nighttown" chapter in James Joyce's Ulysses. Wickert's analysis of this nightmare is learned and illuminating. She shows painstakingly that Gower's models for the "Visio" were less beast fable than prophetic poetry such as that of John of Bridlington and, of course, contemporary sermon practices. Wickert is also a reader of subtle sensitivity and...