The Tale of Deianira and Nessus (CA, II, 2145-2307)
- Author/Editor
- Brown, Carole Koepke
- Title
- The Tale of Deianira and Nessus (CA, II, 2145-2307)
- Published
- Brown, Carole Koepke. "The Tale of Deianira and Nessus (CA, II, 2145-2307)." In John Gower's Literary Transformations in the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations. Ed. Beidler, Peter G. Washington, D. C.: University Press of America, 1982, pp. 15-19. ISBN 0819115962
- Review
- Brown summarizes Ovid's account of "unjustified pain and sorrow" ("Metamorphoses" 9.93-133) and identifies ways that Gower alters Ovid's version in his own account of Deianira, Hercules, and Nessus in CA 2.2145-2307. Gower "moves to center stage" Nessus's abduction of Deianira and use of a love charm in order to demonstrate "Falssemblant" as a form of envy, reducing Deianira to "an innocent victim of another's hypocrisy" and deemphasizing Hercules's role in the plot while making him more human and less heroic.[MA]
- Date
- 1982
- Gower Subjects
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
- Confessio Amantis