John Gower's leveraging of Spain in English politics: arguing from foreign grounds

• Autores: Katie Peebles
• Localización: ES: Revista de filología inglesa, ISSN 0210-9689, Nº. Extra 33, 1, 2012 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Gower in context(s) scribal, linguistic, literary and socio-historical readings / Laura Filardo Llamas (ed. lit.), Brian Gastle (ed. lit.), Marta María Gutiérrez Rodríguez (ed. lit.), Ana Sáez Hidalgo (ed. lit.)), págs. 97-113
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay analyzes why John Gower set the "Tale of the Three Questions," the concluding story in Book I of the Confessio Amantis, in Spain. Written during a time of intense parliamentary concerns over money apparently wasted by Richard II's uncles on military campaigns against Castille-Leon, the tale argues tar the relevance of Spain to England and for the relevance of poetic counsel in domestic politics. The question of Spain in English politics in the 1380s offered Gower a way into debates among the magnates and parliaments of England by evoking past and present Anglo-Castilian relationships. He imagines a situation in which the strategy of good counsel works, suggesting a more acceptable set of choices: alliance and realignment instead of the absolutism of either conquest or avoidance.