week 7: Confessio Amantis - the framework

Dream visions and revelations should normally belong to God alone and Love is infringing on his territory here. Still, it is not uncommon in medieval literature, for Venus and Cupid especially, to be the sources of dreams, think of Chaucer's Parlement of Foules or of Colonna's Hypnoerotomachia (there is, of course, precedence for such an encounter in Ovid as well, he seems to be conversing with Love and Venus freely in his works, but, in his cases, those are not dreams). To think of revelation when talking dream visions is certainly the right call, but I would also like to stress their transformative character (which for example in Chaucer can be missing for ironic purposes). Someone who has just had a dream encounter with death, awakens to his former life a changed man, bent on mending his ways and seeking the better life (think of Dante or Master Polikarp). From the whole structure of Gower's vision, being a confession, evoking likewise the last rites, I think it is safe to assume that a spiritually transformative experience is here likewise the object.

The significance of Love was already discussed by Timotej and I could not agree more. I am going to add to that. Besides Love, I, personally, read it as a "the present vs. the past" lamentation. Gower uses the "then" multiple times. He stressed that in the good old days people (who deserved it, there still is a kind of moral approach) were wealthy, healthy, fortunate, loving. He keeps reminiscing, and compares his idea of the past to the present:
(The world has altered utterly,
And in one way especially:
Love has grown all discordant now.)
Also, there is a sense of wanting to bring the past virtues back. To live it in the present. This is why I used "lamentation." I could not help it, but while reading I was getting a sense that he wants to communicate that it is best to bring the past back, otherwise...

I completely agree with Veronika and I can see that according to Gower the past was better than the present. He keeps stressing that love was somewhat better in the past:

Then love was safe from jealousy;
Then virtue was prized royally,
And vice was trampled underfoot.

When I first read it I found interesting that Gower decided to include Venus and Cupid, Greek gods, because the whole sequence has a Christian undertone especially because Gower puts an emphasis on the vices and sins. Even the title itself "Confessio Amatis" possibly refers to a Christian confession because later in the text the narrator meets a (likely Christian) priest:

At once I lifted up my head,
And there beheld him as he came -
That priest whom she had called by name.
He sat down, ready to confess me;
And, first of all, began to bless me.

I would most definitely agree with what has been said, both with the "golden age" past and the religion of love are clearly visible. Not to reiterate what has been said, I would perhaps point to two very minor interesting things. First is something that brought me back slightly to Ywain and that are some of the lines which mention that in the better past, truthfulness reigned while in the contemporary present it is deceit that is everywhere, he of course shifts the focus of the opening to love, but the connection of these two aspects, along with Venus later warning the poet to be truthful in his plight in love, bring up the rhetoric of love in the original Ywain.
Second thing that sprang to my mind is perhaps connected to what I read in Gaunt's text and it has to do with the clerical narrator of romances. Am I understanding correctly that it is the priest that is introduced in the dream vision that later recounts the story of Apollonius ? If so, it would be an interesting way to introduce the clerical narrator into the story. Although I don't feel like the ironic division between the narrator and the hero is explored much, so this might not be the case.

I do definitely agree with my colleagues that in the prologue, love is presented as a sort of religious matter with Cupid and Venus portrayed as its gods. I would like to elaborate on this matter further, yet from a different point of view.
My efforts were at finding any consistency between the three respective parts of the introduction (the general lamentation over how spoilt the contemporary epoch is, the veneration of God, and the dream-like debate with Venus and the priest). As I perceive it, these three sections convey very distinct messages, however, there is one narratorial image that remains stable. It is the role of Love as the supreme, but impartial judge that is portrayed coherently throughout the whole passage. In the first section, the narrator characterises the lost golden age as one in which “law and justice were secure” (l. 102) which is not the case for current state of affairs because of “by hate, not love, are laws decided” (l. 128). The “Love’s orderly estate” (l. 148) is broken, because Love has ceased to be the law and the judge. I believe that when the narrator states explicitly in the second part that God shall “bring back Love back to us again” (l. 185), he means not only the courteous behaviour and perception of the feeling, but also a positively defined organisation of society.
I would probably also argue that it is this perception of Love as the law and judge that creates a strong parallel between Christ and Love which is especially noteworthy in the last part. Lines like “There are too many of you / Pretenders: if so be thou too / Pretendest, and be such a one, / Count well the service thou hast done.” (l. 174-178) may be hardly denied the potential of recalling God of the Last Judgement. So, Love is not only a religion, but it is also a religion (un)surprisingly resembling Christian belief, at least in the aspect of justice.