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Study on Milton and Gower Derek K. Whisman a Thesis A Devil of a Coincidence? Study on Milton and Gower Derek K. Whisman A Thesis presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree: Master of Arts in English Charlene Eska, Chair Anthony Colaianne Ernest Sullivan April 27, 2010 Blacksburg, VA Keywords: John Gower, John Milton, Satan, Sin, Death Copyright 2010, Derek K. Whisman 1 A Devil of a Coincidence: Study on Milton and Gower Derek K. Whisman (ABSTRACT) John Milton's Paradise Lost and John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme share two very strikingly similar personifications of Sin and Death. Surely it can be no coincidence that two authors, writing three hundred years apart, were able to craft such nearly identical portrayals. Either Milton must have read Gower or both Milton and Gower must have used similar sources for inspiration. Yet most scholars disregard any possibility that Milton had read the Mirour because a) it was written in a language Milton may not have known and b) the manuscript was thought to be lost until 1899, well after Milton's death. However, no connection source has yet been found to explain the large similarities between Milton and Gower's works. Therefore is the goal of this project to determine how Paradise Lost and Mirour de l'Omme are connected. 2 Acknowledgements This project began almost entirely by accident. I was assigned to lead class discussions on a little known work by John Gower entitled the Mirour de l'Omme. Gower's rich language and imagery immediately drew my interest. I was particularly intrigued by the violent, gory sections where Sin and Death were personified. But I realized I had heard such personifications somewhere before. It took some time to finally make the obvious connection to back to John Milton's Paradise Lost , but when I compared the two side-by-side the similarities were too hard to ignore. So I begin by thanking my thesis director, Dr. Charlene Eska, for giving me the spark to begin this project and for keeping me constantly motivated, even when I ran into constant dead ends. Her tireless efforts and abundant patience have proved invaluable to my growth as a student and scholar. Second, I want to thank committee members Dr. Anthony Colaianne and Dr. Ernest Sullivan for their constant hard work and support, for reading several rough drafts and offering critical feedback to keep me constantly on the right path. I consider myself fortunate to have assembled such a diverse and brilliant thesis committee. They each contributed different areas to the final product and I will never be able to thank them enough. I also want to thank Jessica Cheek. Without her well-timed interest in Paradise Lost , this project would have never began. Lastly, to my parents and family for their constant love and support through the process. Gower wrote that "It hath and schal ben everemor / That love is maister wher he wile" ( Confessio Amantis ). Indeed, love shall endure forevermore. iii 3 Contents Part I: The Authors ____________________________________________________ 2 (a) John Gower (c. 1330-1408) ___________________________________________ 2 (b) John Milton (1608-1674) _____________________________________________ 5 Part II: The Works _____________________________________________________ 8 (a) Gower’s Mirour de l'Omme (c. 1376) ___________________________________ 8 (b) Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) ________________________________________ 14 Part III: The Similarities _______________________________________________ 15 Part IV: The Possibilities _______________________________________________ 22 (a) Direct Contact_____________________________________________________ 22 (b) Similar Sources ____________________________________________________ 29 (i.) Classical Sources________________________________________________ 32 (ii.) Christian Sources _______________________________________________ 36 (iii.) Contemporary Sources ___________________________________________ 42 Part V: Conclusion ____________________________________________________ 47 Timeline of Significant Dates ____________________________________________ 49 Bibliography __________________________________________________________ 50 iv Table of Figures Similarities in Gower and Milton’s Phrasing _______________________________ 20 Classical Sources ______________________________________________________ 32 Christian Sources ______________________________________________________ 36 Contemporary Sources _________________________________________________ 42 v A Devil of a Coincidence? Study on Milton and Gower The seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost is one of the most widely studied texts in all of literary history. The work, written by John Milton, depicts Satan's fall from Heaven and subsequent deeds on Earth and in Hell. One of the more remarkable and, often, most overlooked scenes in the story involves the distinctive personification of Sin and Death. Milton depicts Sin as the daughter of Satan, with no mention of a mother, born through a process of spontaneous generation. Satan then becomes so captivated by his daughter's wickedness that he forces himself upon her, causing Sin to bear a son, Death. This illustration is striking, especially given that it also appears in the opening pages of the fourteenth-century Mirour de l'Omme (c. 1376) by John Gower. In both Milton and Gower's poems, Satan, Sin, and Death are personified as having this familial, incestuous relationship which ultimately creates the world's evils. Their depictions are not merely reminiscent of one another, but rather, often match up in nearly identical fashions. John S. P. Tatlock was the among the first to notice these similarities, but was also quick to express his hesitance to say with any sort of assurance that Milton had read Gower: "Since only one manuscript of the Mirour is known, and that was never published until seven years ago [1899], the chance is infinitesimal that Milton ever heard of the poem. But that his and Gower's sources are ultimately the same seems to me highly probable." 1 Yet to date, no studies have been conducted to determine which shared sources could possibly lead Milton and Gower to construct such similar personifications of Sin and Death. Indeed, John Fisher notes that 1 John Tatlock, "Milton's Sin and Death." Modern Language Notes, Vol. 21, No. 8. (1906): p. 240. 1 6 currently "the influence of the Mirour upon Paradise Lost remains an open question." 2 It is upon this open question that I now attempt to help fill this century-old void in literary research. (I) THE AUTHORS The issue here centers on how two English authors, living three hundred years apart, drafted two very similar depictions of Sin and Death in each of their poems. If Milton truly never came into contact with the Mirour, it stands to reason that both authors were influenced by similar sources. To that end, it is important to understand the time period in which each lived and wrote, studying the political and literary climates for clues to connections between the two poems and their personifications of Sin and Death. (a) John Gower (c. 1330-1408) Much of what could be known about John Gower has been lost to time and circumstance. His life must be assembled like a puzzle with the knowledge and acceptance that several pieces may never be found. Gower's biography has therefore been constructed based loosely on inferences made from personal and public records. Until recently, little, if anything, was known about Gower's background prior to the beginning of his writing career. Then, in his 1964 study of Gower, John Fisher urged literary scholars to bring Gower back to life, writing that "no English poet is more badly in need of such resuscitation than John Gower." 3 Fisher added to the work of G.C. Macaulay to produce perhaps the first full-length attempt at composing Gower's biography. According to Fisher, from what may be inferred from legal and landownership papers, Gower was most likely born into a wealthy family sometime around 1330. There are 2 John H. Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer (New York: New York University Press, 1964), p. 164 3 Ibid , 1. 2 7 records of a John Gower purchasing property in Kent and in London, which may be assumed to be the poet. Gower surely had an early career in the legal profession; his writing career did not truly begin until the mid-1370s when the poet would have been in his forties. Gower completed Mirour de l'Omme , his first major work, sometime around 1376, although as we shall see, it would have little impact upon literary history until several centuries later. Gower continued to write long after the Mirour de l'Omme had been completed. Perhaps his most successful work, Confessio Amantis , was completed in 1390 and dedicated to Richard II. In Confessio , Gower even excuses Richard's mistakes, claiming the King had fallen victim to poor counsel. At the heart of nearly all his great works, John Gower demonstrates such political awareness, dealing often with sensitive issues between the classes in society. The poet's constant support of whichever King was in power, prompted Fisher to wonder: "How is Gower's changing political allegiance to be understood, and what relation does his political involvement bear to his writing?" 4 Fisher would try to come to an answer to his own question throughout his work, but perhaps the solution is a simplistic one: Gower knew that the support of the English crown could lead to commissions and writing success. Beyond that, the reasons behind his motives remain his own. As Sian Echard notes: "Gower's poetics and his politics are intimately linked. He engaged in a life-long search for the place from which, and the voice in which, to speak. That search involved different languages and different genres, and involved Gower in choices which later were not always well understood." 5 Therefore it would be fair to see that Gower's writings changed not merely because the crown changed hands but, rather, because he was searching for a voice that fit into the new political climate. 4 Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher , p. 69. 5 Sian Echard, ed., A Companion to Gower (Cambridge: D.S.
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