Promiscuous Contexts: Gower’s Wife, Prostitution, and the Confessio Amantis

Abstract

The essays collected here represent the current state of research into the works of John Gower, poet, philosopher, and contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer. They assess Gower’s literary output within the context of manuscript production and readership/ownership in late medieval England and the triangle of Latin, French, and English as literary and official languages in Ricardian England. Sections of the volume focus on manuscripts and the circulation of Gower’s works in languages other than English. In addition, the literary and philosophical contexts that inform Gower’s poetics and politics are considered here, resulting in readings of the poet’s rhetorical and ethical agenda as well as his texts’ intervention in and reaction to social outsiders in his contemporary London. A wide variety of critical discourses inform the readings presented here, including medieval English, French, and Latin literary studies, art history, manuscript production and reception, postmodern ethics, and historical studies.

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