The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry Before 1600

Amans’s “retret” from earthly love as the imperative to
which the entire poem leads; with this view, we must
understand Genius ironically whenever he advocates
erotic love as a moral necessity. Other critics argue that
Genius’s advocacy of erotic love always has chaste mar-
riage in view. The poem consistently promotes chaste,
married love up until Amans’s “retret,” which should
be seen as no more than a pious epilogue. Different
versions of these arguments account for the poem’s
political interests in different ways. Other scholars
deny that the unity of the work can withstand close
scrutiny, arguing variously that Gower intended his
readers only to read selectively, or else that Gower
failed to carry out his ambitions for a large-scale, uni-
fi ed work.
The immediate and lasting success of the Confessio
Amantis is attested to, not only by the number of early
copies extant but also by laudatory assessments of the
work by various writers from the 15th to the 17th cen-
turies. It was quickly translated into Portuguese and
Spanish, and WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE brought Gower
onto the stage in Pericles (1607?), using Gower’s Apol-
lonius of Tyre as a source and also using “Gower” as
narrator.
Several 20th-century assessments have argued for
the aesthetic merit of the Confessio on many different
levels. In the last 50 years, scholarship has made great
progress in placing Gower’s work within medieval lit-
erary traditions, especially in its relationships to the
Boethian tradition of philosophical consolation, the
vernacular French tradition subsequent to the 13th-
century Romance of the Rose, and the MIRRORS FOR
PRINCEs genre. As well, the poem’s connections to both
Richard II and Henry IV make it highly relevant to the
study of political rhetoric at this time. Several recent
arguments have stressed the close relationship between
erotic and political discourses, and the Confessio fi g-
ures largely in these accounts. Gower’s many stories
involving the victimization of women by rape, seduc-
tion, and other forms of violence are attracting feminist
readings. Finally, the manuscripts themselves, which
contain evidence of the reading practices of the poem’s
fi rst readers, continue to generate interest for studies in
the history of reading.
See also CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, THE.

FURTHER READING

Echard, Siân, ed. A Companion to Gower. Cambridge: D.S.

Brewer, 2004.

Nicholson, Peter. Love and Ethics in Gower’s Confessio Aman-

tis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.

Simpson, James. Sciences and the Self in Medieval Poetry: Alan

of Lille’s Anticlaudianus and John Gower’s Confessio Amantis.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Watt, Diane. Amoral Gower: Language, Sex, and Politics. Min-

neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

T. M. N. McCabe

CONSOLATIO (CONSOLATION) Comfort

and consolation are frequent literary subjects. There

are several different types of consolation, from the gen-

eral comfort offered in some works in the ELEGY genre

to the specifi c genre of the didactic consolatio. Old Eng-

lish elegiac examples include “The WANDERER,” “DEOR,”

and “Resignation.” These poems bemoan exile and loss

but contain sections of consolation that enable the poet

to continue on. As didactic poetry, the consolation

involves a series of stock arguments delivered by a

“wise one” and addressed to the affl icted person in

order to encourage a change of view.

In the early sixth century, a Christian Roman consul,

BOETHIUS, wrote the most infl uential of work this genre,

The CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY. Boethius combined the

consolatio tradition of the classical period—which

focused on instruction in virtuous conduct, often

through dreams or ancestors—with the Christian apoc-

alyptic vision. In this new hybrid, a divine or heavenly

fi gure imparts knowledge and wisdom to the recipient.

See also METERS OF BOETHIUS.

FURTHER READING

Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Translated by P. G.

Walsh. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 2000.

Chadwick, Henry. Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic,

Theology, and Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Larry J. Swain

CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, THE

BOETHIUS (ca. 523 C.E.) The Consolation of Philosophy

is a complex work that connects Greek and Roman

thought to the medieval period and had signifi cant

CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, THE 125