5 - Earthly Gower: Transforming Geographical Texts and Images in the Confessio Amantis and Vox Clamantis Manuscripts

Summary

The now-iconic manuscript image of Gower as an archer taking aim at a tripartite earth has attracted attention in relation to the poet’s ethical and national concerns, with the latter being likened to the characteristically English militarism of archers at the turn of the fourteenth century. However, the earth that supplies the archer’s terrestrial target has remained only a backdrop for modern scholarship, which tends to gravitate towards Gower the socio-political commentator instead of Gower the writer with an impressive command of geography. Chaucerian criticism has fared better on this front, amassing studies of his toponymic references, interest in the Near East, and the diverse geographical areas in which his tales occur. As with many topics, Gower’s geographical sophistication becomes trivialized when juxtaposed with Chaucer’s, a trivialization with certain justifiable premises. Gower has comparatively little interest in the Near East and in detailed settings. Gower also includes fewer geographical references than does Chaucer, and his treatments of these references differ in some respects from each other within his own corpus. In particular, the Confessio Amantis tends to treat geographical details as literal locations, whereas the Visio that introduces the Vox Clamantis infuses them with multiple layers of meaning. Both poems, however, often turn to historical texts for details about the earth’s regions.

This reliance on historical texts has prompted modern scholars to treat Gower’s geographical references more as abstract concepts than as existing places, implying that Gower’s reliance on written traditions contradicts what otherwise might be recognized as actual geographical knowledge. As a result, the few studies produced on Gower’s geographical topics tend to address them as perceptions of space instead of tangible places. Ethan Knapp’s analysis of Egypt’s intellectual (particularly astrological) impact on the Confessio exemplifies this treatment, as does Kurt Olsson’s discussion of place in the Vox Clamantis, a discussion that quickly transitions from geographical London to conceptual justice. Although such abstract concepts influence Gower’s geographical depictions, his geographical topics also encompass physical locations that helped render subjects historical, instead of purely conceptual. This essay proposes that, in the process of using geographical locations to ground his narratives, Gower appropriates a skeptical tradition dating back to antiquity while also contributing a new sense of mythological meaning.