| Popis: |
In the intricately structured final tale of John Gower’s Confessio amantis, the widowed Apollonius’s relationship to his daughter constitutes the heart of the story: his decision to foster her out, her seeming death, his consequent despair, and their eventual reunion. This chapter argues that Gower frames these events with others that introduce, validate by experience, and authoritatively confirm the virtues with which the hero confronts his adventures. The key elements in these frames are gifts, initially a shipload of wheat, and the stormy sea. The sea, here and more broadly in medieval art, has long been recognized as representing fortune, but the grain that Apollonius donates to Tharsis has received little attention.1 Brought together, these narrative elements suggest the “bread” and “waters” of a well-known passage from Ecclesiastes: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”2 |
