Venus’ Owne Clerk

Venus’ Owne Clerk: Chaucer’s Debt to the “Confessio Amantis” will appeal to all those who value a bit of integration of Chaucer and Gower studies. It develops the unusual theme that the Canterbury Tales were signally influenced by John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, resulting in a set-up which is entirely different from the one announced in the General Prologue. Lindeboom seeks to show that this results from Gower’s call, at the end of his first redaction of the Confessio, for a work similar to his – a testament of love. Much of the argument centres upon the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner, who are shown to follow Gower’s lead by both engaging in confessing to all the Seven Deadly Sins while preaching a typically fourteenth-century sermon at the same time. While not beyond speculation at times, the author offers his readers a well-documented and tantalizing glimpse of Chaucer turning away from his original concept for the Canterbury Tales and realigning them along lines far closer to Gower.

"The overall argument of Wim Lindeboom’s book is that Chaucer radically changed his development of the Canterbury Tales as a reaction to reading Gower’s Confessio. Dr Lindeboom offers a comprehensive and exciting reading of the Tales in the light of the Confessio which I find thought-provoking and insightful. On the way to this reading he provides enlightening discussion on a series of key issues in Chaucer/Gower scholarship. The book’s unconventional approach is both exciting and stimulating, not afraid to court controversy or to take issue with established views. The truly impressive grasp of detail is continually linked with a broad conception of what these poets were trying to achieve." – Jeremy J. Smith, University of Glasgow
"Lindeboom has written a surprising book – and a courageous. Venus’ Owne Clerk leaves scarcely a time-honoured assumption about the Gower-Chaucer literary relationship unconfronted. Few, perhaps, will agree with his every conclusion, but no one who reads this book can come away unchallenged by its fresh way of seeing." – Robert F. Yeager, University of West Florida