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Article: Venus' Owne Clerk: Chaucer's Debt to the Confessio Amantis.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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'Venus' owne clerk': Chaucer's Debt to the 'Confessio amantis'. By Wim Lindeboom. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2007. 477 pp. 71 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 978-90-420-2150-1.
The title of this sprawling book is a misnomer. Wim Lindeboom really finds in Chaucer less a 'debt' to Gower than a sharp competitive reaction allegedly provoked by a suggestion in the first redaction of the Confessio amantis (1390) that Chaucer should 'make his testament of love' just as Gower has composed the 'schrifte' that structures the Confessio itself. Lindeboom has little time for Gower except as quarry and target: he supposes that the 'superficialities of his philosophy' (p. 206) ...