A Bond of True Love: Performing Courtship and Betrothal in Gower’s Cinkante balades and Spenser’s Amoretti, in Light of Christine de Pizan’s Cent balades
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Linda Burke
Abstract
This article presents the first comparative study of two lyric sequences, Gower’s Anglo-French Cinkante balades (1399 or slightly later) and Spenser’s Amoretti (English, 1595), both based on the poet’s own recent happy experience of courtship, betrothal, and marriage. Beginning with background information on Christine de Pizan’s Cent balades and the Song of Songs, the article provides a multipart comparison of the two sequences in turn, as they engage the reader with a dramatic fiction of a man and a woman progressing over time, through verbal interplay, to a joyful commitment by both partners, a “lien/bond” of love that is equally shared between them. The importance of the woman’s voice is noted in both sequences. By their strategic use of dialogue, even as dramatic fiction, both poets display their interest in communication between persons in contrast to the more conventional lyric voice turned inward on aspects of the self. The study closes by noting the common themes on the dignity of marriage that united the late medieval Catholic Gower and the English Protestant Spenser.
Abstract
This article presents the first comparative study of two lyric sequences, Gower’s Anglo-French Cinkante balades (1399 or slightly later) and Spenser’s Amoretti (English, 1595), both based on the poet’s own recent happy experience of courtship, betrothal, and marriage. Beginning with background information on Christine de Pizan’s Cent balades and the Song of Songs, the article provides a multipart comparison of the two sequences in turn, as they engage the reader with a dramatic fiction of a man and a woman progressing over time, through verbal interplay, to a joyful commitment by both partners, a “lien/bond” of love that is equally shared between them. The importance of the woman’s voice is noted in both sequences. By their strategic use of dialogue, even as dramatic fiction, both poets display their interest in communication between persons in contrast to the more conventional lyric voice turned inward on aspects of the self. The study closes by noting the common themes on the dignity of marriage that united the late medieval Catholic Gower and the English Protestant Spenser.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- List of Illustrations IX
- Introduction: An Essay on Language, Culture, and Identity: Medieval and Early Modern Perspectives on and Approaches to Communication, Translation, and Community 1
- Ways of Communication and Mis/communication in Abū Tammām’s “Ode on the Conquest of Amorium” (838 C.E.) 95
- Proscribed Communication: The Obscene Language of the Troubadour William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and VII Count of Poitiers 109
- (Non)-Imaginary Ideal Communities in the Pre-Modern World: A Reading in the Utopian Works of al-Fārābi’, Ibn Khaldūn, Christine de Pizan, and Thomas More 159
- A Jewish Moneylender, Miscommunication, and a Lie: Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagro no. 23 191
- Words, Signs, Meanings: William Langland’s Piers Plowman as a Window on Linguistic Chaos 209
- The Chaucerian Translator 233
- Entertainment, Laughter, and Reflections as a Training Ground for Communication in Public and Private: The Case of Heinrich Kaufringer, ca. 1400 255
- …written in my own Jewish hand 291
- Demonic Operators: Forbidden Relations in Medieval Communication 327
- Paroemiac Expressions: A Touch of Color in the Ambassadors’ Diplomatic Correspondence in the Fifteenth Century 351
- Communication and Translation in Early Modern Basque Society. The Role Played by the Public Notaries 379
- Preventing Miscommunication: Early Modern German Surgeons as Specialized Translators 393
- Reputation and Authority in the Physicians’ Communication with Patients as Reflected in the Czech-Language Sources of the Early Modern Period 415
- The Physicians’ Community in Pre-Thirty Years’ War Bohemia 439
- A Bond of True Love: Performing Courtship and Betrothal in Gower’s Cinkante balades and Spenser’s Amoretti, in Light of Christine de Pizan’s Cent balades 461
- Noble Friendship in Relation to the Community: Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice 491
- Deconstructing the (Mis)Interpretation of Paratextual Elements in Ross’s English Translation of the Qur’ān, The Alcoran of Mahomet (1649) 519
- Community and the Others: Unveiling Boundaries in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice 551
- Biographies of the Contributors 617
- Index 627
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- List of Illustrations IX
- Introduction: An Essay on Language, Culture, and Identity: Medieval and Early Modern Perspectives on and Approaches to Communication, Translation, and Community 1
- Ways of Communication and Mis/communication in Abū Tammām’s “Ode on the Conquest of Amorium” (838 C.E.) 95
- Proscribed Communication: The Obscene Language of the Troubadour William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and VII Count of Poitiers 109
- (Non)-Imaginary Ideal Communities in the Pre-Modern World: A Reading in the Utopian Works of al-Fārābi’, Ibn Khaldūn, Christine de Pizan, and Thomas More 159
- A Jewish Moneylender, Miscommunication, and a Lie: Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagro no. 23 191
- Words, Signs, Meanings: William Langland’s Piers Plowman as a Window on Linguistic Chaos 209
- The Chaucerian Translator 233
- Entertainment, Laughter, and Reflections as a Training Ground for Communication in Public and Private: The Case of Heinrich Kaufringer, ca. 1400 255
- …written in my own Jewish hand 291
- Demonic Operators: Forbidden Relations in Medieval Communication 327
- Paroemiac Expressions: A Touch of Color in the Ambassadors’ Diplomatic Correspondence in the Fifteenth Century 351
- Communication and Translation in Early Modern Basque Society. The Role Played by the Public Notaries 379
- Preventing Miscommunication: Early Modern German Surgeons as Specialized Translators 393
- Reputation and Authority in the Physicians’ Communication with Patients as Reflected in the Czech-Language Sources of the Early Modern Period 415
- The Physicians’ Community in Pre-Thirty Years’ War Bohemia 439
- A Bond of True Love: Performing Courtship and Betrothal in Gower’s Cinkante balades and Spenser’s Amoretti, in Light of Christine de Pizan’s Cent balades 461
- Noble Friendship in Relation to the Community: Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice 491
- Deconstructing the (Mis)Interpretation of Paratextual Elements in Ross’s English Translation of the Qur’ān, The Alcoran of Mahomet (1649) 519
- Community and the Others: Unveiling Boundaries in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice 551
- Biographies of the Contributors 617
- Index 627
