pretense. Venus ends the interview by charging Amans
to undergo a pseudo-sacramental confession: “Unto
my prest, which comth anon [immediately], / I woll
thou telle it on and on, / Bothe all thi thoght and al thi
werk” (1.193–95).
Venus’s priest, Genius, an allegorical fi gure (see
ALLEGORY) traditionally associated with Nature and
with the animal instinct for procreation, duly arrives to
hear Amans’s confession. Modeled roughly on the sac-
ramental confession of the church, the confession
devotes a great deal of space to Genius’s instruction of
Amans—far more, in fact, than it does to Amans’s
account of his own conduct. Genius’s instruction will
have two main thrusts, as he himself states: Because he
is a servant of Venus, he will speak (and question
Amans) about love; because he is a priest, he will speak
(and inquire) about virtue and vice. Genius instructs
mainly through narrative and tells about 150 stories in
all, taking them from various sources, including the
works of OVID, ROMANCEs told in the VERNACULAR, ency-
clopedic works, and EXEMPLUM collections. The stories
range widely in length and complexity, from exempla
of a few lines to the 2,700-line Apollonius of Tyre
romance that fi lls most of book 8.
Gower organizes the confession according to the SEVEN
DEADLY SINS, devoting the fi rst six books to Pride, Envy,
Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, and Gluttony, respectively, and
further analyzing each of these sins according to their
subspecies. No book gives a systematic analysis of the
seventh sin, Lust, because amatory sins are dealt with in
all the books. The unpredictable juxtapositions of Chris-
tian and amatory doctrines keep the lessons varied. For
example, in book 1, Genius illustrates Surquiderie, by
which he means lofty, contemptuous pride, with the Tale
of Capaneus and with the Trump of Death; he then
shows how this sin applies to love in the Tale of Narcis-
sus, who was so proud of his own beauty that he thought
no woman worthy of him. But Genius does not always
do this. Sometimes he makes the application to love fi rst;
sometimes he omits one or the other entirely. Further,
Genius applies the various sins to love in different ways.
He applies Drunkenness (a species of Gluttony) to love
metaphorically, making it an occasion to consider “Love-
Drunkenness;” but he does not do this with Envy, which
remains Envy whether in or out of an amatory context.
Genius also varies the structure of the confession by
occasionally setting aside the seven deadly sins alto-
gether. Amans contributes variety to the poem as well,
since his answers to Genius’s questions about his con-
duct range from fl at denials to elaborate confessions of
guilt to brazen wishes that he might fi nd an opportunity
to commit the sin. Usually, though not always, Genius
concludes his analyses of the cardinal sins with a descrip-
tion of their “remedies,” the virtues corresponding to
them (e.g., the remedy for Pride is humility).
Before taking up the fi rst sin, Pride, Genius begins
book 1 with a discussion of the senses as the gates
through which things enter the heart. The section
raises interesting questions about moral agency. The
Tale of Acteon shows the senses to be so susceptible to
sin that humanity’s condition appears almost hopeless.
Seeing Diana naked, Acteon commits “mislok” [evil
looking] and must pay by dying terribly. But the com-
panion story, Perseus and the Gorgons, suggests that,
however perilous humanity’s condition may be, it is
possible to resist sin. After treating sight and hearing,
Genius abandons his discussion of the fi ve senses and
takes up Pride by telling the Tale of Florent, a version
of the loathly lady story also told by GEOFFREY CHAU-
CER’s Wife of Bath in The CANTERBURY TALES. The book
ends with the Three Questions, in which a girl hum-
bles the wisdom of her father and the king.
Book 2 features two important stories. First, the
1,000-line Tale of Constance, which Chaucer retells as
“the MAN OF LAW’S TALE,” illustrates Detraction (i.e.,
backbiting) and shows how Constance’s virtuous suf-
fering overcomes the ill effects of sin and fosters con-
versions to Christianity. The fi nal story of the book,
the Tale of Constantine and Silvester, similarly features
dramatic reversal, resolution of social confl ict, and
conversion, bringing together the Book’s themes and
illustrating Envy’s remedy, Charity.
Book 3 offers a version of the Ovidian Tale of Canace
and Machaire, famous for treating brother-sister incest
uncensoriously. Genius’s main interest in the story
concerns the frenzied “Malencolie” (melancholy) of the
children’s father, Eolus, who forces his daughter to
commit suicide when he learns she is pregnant. Also
noteworthy in this book is the condemnation of war,
which comes within Genius’s discussion of Homicide.CONFESSIO AMANTIS 123