Gower, Richard II, Henry of Derby, and the Business of Making Culture

Review

There are two unequal parts to this lengthy essay. The first, and shorter, considers the ways in which CA, "The Legend of Good Women," and Clanvowe’s "Boke of Cupid" address issues of royal prerogatives and power. Since Gower’s dedication of his poem records his relation with the king most explicitly (Chaucer’s and Clanvowe’s are encoded in their relations with the god of Love), he gets the least amount of attention of the three. Staley argues, however, that all three were engaged in a conversation with Richard that was possible in the mid-1380’s but that would have been impossible after the Merciless Parliament of 1388. The second part considers the circumstances of Gower’s revision of the dedication, when “Gower attempted to salvage a poem whose original conditions were no longer apparent? (p. 79). Staley gives more than merely passing regard to the events in the early 1390’s that have been cited in the past to justify his change of view of the king, particularly to the quarrel with London in 1392. But the greatest amount of attention (indeed more than half this essay) is reserved for the role of John of Gaunt during this period and for his possible influence on the literary culture of the time. Staley cites Gaunt’s longtime interest in acquiring a throne that he might pass on to his son, his care for improving Henry’s position while retaining the good will of the king, his sponsorship of Henry’s expeditions on the continent, and his efforts to acquire the prestige associated with his own court; and then points out the reversal of expectations that he must have suffered because of a series of unexpected events in 1394. Much of what Staley offers is speculative but closely enough grounded in documented fact to be interesting and at times intriguing. The consequences for Gower are disappointingly slight, however, and Staley’s conclusion, expressed in an interrogative, can be quoted in full: “Are Gower’s changes to the Confessio a sign, possibly of dissatisfaction with Richard, but also of Gaunt’s subtle co-opting of a poet’s allegiance? To dedicate a poem about the state of England to Henry of Derby in 1392-93 served as one more indication of his status as protector of those virtues of ethical self-government that were memorialized in the poem itself and perhaps of a ‘court’ (even a virtual one) whose reality demanded an utterance that only a man with Gower’s reputation for integrity could supply? (p. 96). [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 19.2]