SPEAKING OF SODOMY: GOWER’S ADVICE TO PRINCES IN THE CONFESSIO AMANTIS
Book 7 of Confessio Amantis begins as an account of Aristotle's education of Alexander, and it concludes with the lesson on Chastity and with negative examples of lecherous rulers. "Gower's book of statecraft thus ends up offering an art of love as a manual of advice for rulers and in the process conflates sexual regulation and political rule" (428). Gower's strategy derives from a long tradition of criticism of Richard II and his counselors that "persistently focused on its alleged transgressive sexual practices" (423-24), culminating "in a politically motivated allegation of sodomy that sought to substantiate Richard's unfitness to rule and to justify Henry IV's usurpation of the throne" (424). Hanrahan begins with a discussion of the broad and often imprecise meanings of both "sodomy" and "unnatural" in contemporary texts, simultaneously designating that which was considered unspeakable and also a wide range of non-sexual acts. Gower reflects contemporary anxieties over the king's counselors both in VC Book 6 and in the CA Prologue, and in changing the dedication of CA to Henry of Derby, Gower appealed to an exemplary figure of good counsel. In Book 7, the discussion of chastity begins with the claim that lust effeminizes a man, echoing directly one of the charges that was laid against Richard and his court, for instance in Walsingham; and Genius' use of Sardanapalus, who finally lost his throne, as his example anticipates the later justification of Richard's deposition for the same cause. Though Gower never mentions sodomy by name, the allegation nonetheless "haunts" his poem (436), as it does the other texts that assert that lechery can lead men to become like women, and in his lessons in Book 7, "Gower creates a nexus of unnatural crimes that enmeshes his advice with implicit warnings against sodomitical practices" (437) . The implicit criticism of Richard extends to the linkage that Gower draws between Alexander and Richard as recipients of Aristotle's advice, for "born in treason and lust," as Genius demonstrates in his tale of Nectanabus in Book 6, "Alexander springs from the unnatural desires that Genius seeks to warn rulers against" (441). Hanrahan emphasizes the punishment of unnaturalness in the tales of "Lucrece," "Virginia," and "Tobias and Sara." The latter tale also anticipates Amans' "rejection of the sin against nature" in the poem's conclusion (443). Reformed, he has a vision of the court of Cupid dressed in the "newe guise of Beawme" (8.2970), a clear reference to the court of Richard II that identifies the king with ostentatiousness of dress and the pursuit of pleasure, the same "lecherous and luxurious practices that have transformed past rulers into effeminate men. Gower thus ends up offering his advice from the position of a reformed sodomite, and he effectively implicates the king as a sodomite in two ways: by offering negative examples of unnatural rulers for Richard's edification, and by providing his reformed persona as a model for the king to emulate" (445). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society: JGN 22.1]
The queer histories of Edward II and Richard II of England
Beginning during their reigns, kings Edward II and Richard II of England developed “queer” reputations that have been perpetuated and renegotiated through the present day. Scholars continue to debate how best to understand these elements of Edward and Richard’s legacies, sometimes focusing on possibilities of gender transgression and intimacy between men, and sometimes dismissing such lines of inquiry as stemming from the unfounded allegations of politically-motivated chroniclers. This debate overlaps with a broader conversation about how scholars should reckon with the empiricist, historicist approach that has heretofore been dominant in work dealing with issues of gender and sexuality in history. Drawing on Jonathan Goldberg and Madhavi Menon’s notion of queer unhistoricism, as well as Carla Freccero’s work on queer spectrality, this thesis uses an expansive definition of queerness to move past “werethey-or-weren’t-they” disputes about Edward and Richard, and engage more fruitfully with the presence of queerness in both medieval and modern texts about these kings. Two late medieval poems written in praise of the currently-reigning king, Adam Davy’s Five Dreams about Edward II (c. 1308) and Richard Maidstone’s Concordia facta inter regem et cives Londonie (c. 1392), are similar in their creation of a textual intimacy between the king and the author—a socially-imbalanced intimacy that mirrors the highly-criticized relationships between the kings and their male favorites. I examine these poems in relation to fourteenthand fifteenth-century chronicles that disparage Edward, Richard, and their relationships with their favorites, linking bad kingship with the feminization of men and excessive intimacy between men. Expanding on Claire Sponsler’s reading of Froissart’s chronicles, I look at a modern British
The Romance of the Rose
'If any man or woman should ask what I wish this romance...to be called, it is the Romance of the Rose, in which the whole art of love is contained'. Guillaume de Lorris's own introduction to his allegorical account of the progress of a courtly love affair gives no indication of the eventual scale and scope of the work, which became the most popular and influential of all medieval romances. In the hands of Jean de Meun, who continued de Lorris's work, it assumed vast proportions and embraced almost every aspect of medieval life, from predestination to the right way to deal with premature hair-loss. This new translation into modern English, based on the French edition by Felix Lecoy, is intended as much for the general reader as for students of French and English literature. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.