This article argues that John Gower’s Confessio Amantis is a coherent poem, that its bleak conclusion is inevitable, and that the exemplary moral tales in the main body of the poem work to anticipate and prepare the ground for that conclusion. In support of this argument, I analyze a sequence of tales from book 5—the tales of Echo, Babio and Croceus, Adrian and Bardus, and Theseus and Ariadne—in order to show how they function on multiple levels. Ostensibly, they warn against sins of which the hapless Amans is not guilty (and which he accuses his lady of having committed herself); on a deeper level, and with the help of tactful hints from Genius, they warn Amans of the dangers to which his unrequited love may expose him, and of its inevitable end-point. In advancing these claims, I contest the views of scholars who have argued for the Confessio ’s incoherence, or for a more optimistic view of Genius’s advice to Amans, and suggest that coming to terms with the poem’s coherence and bleakness enhances our appreciation of its subtlety and profundity.
This chapter aims to illustrate three simple points: first, that medieval love-debate poetry is centrally concerned with a conflict between idealism and pragmatism; second, that Machaut’s Jugement du roy de Behaigne foregrounds this aspect of the love-debate genre and explores its implications; and third, that Gower’s Confessio Amantis is also structured around the juxtaposition of idealistic and pragmatic views of love. While the two narrative poems may seem to distinguish themselves from earlier love-debates by “settling” the conflict presented with a conclusive judgment, they also retain the fundamental ambivalence of the un-concluded jeux-partis. Machaut and Gower invest sympathetically in the idea that worldly pleasures, and specifically the pleasures of love, can be idealized and given enduring value, and the energy and persistence of this fantasy constitute a significant part of these poems’ appeal. It is a fantasy nonetheless, because both poets also figure the attempt to align love with virtue as essentially futile.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.