
Contents
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THE LOVER'S CONFESSION AND THE LIMITS OF GENIUS THE LOVER'S CONFESSION AND THE LIMITS OF GENIUS
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VENUS'S REMEDY: THE POLITICS OF PENANCE VENUS'S REMEDY: THE POLITICS OF PENANCE
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MAGNIFICENT CUPID MAGNIFICENT CUPID
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Curtailing Cupid Curtailing Cupid
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4 4 Courtly Love and the Lordship of Venus
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Published:May 2008
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Abstract
The second of two chapters on the Confessio Amantis frame narrative, this chapter analyses political dimensions of courtly love and the relationship between Venus, Cupid, Genius and Amans, or the lover, in Gower's poem. First, it argues that Gower laicizes penitential discourse in his technical but minimally ecclesiastic representation of confession and of Genius as confessor, which crucially embeds confession in an allegorical, great household narrative of lay lordship and petitioning. The chapter is principally dedicated to interpretation of the poem's closing scenes, in which Venus can be seen to act as the lover's good lord, to bestow on him a livery collar, and to overmatch Cupid's unilateral lordship at the climax of the poem's contest between ‘magnificence’ and ‘reciprocalism’. Venus's and Cupid's politics are illuminated by readings of The Romance of the Rose, Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls and Legend of Good Women, and Sir John Clanvowe's Boke of Cupide.
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