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

Abstract

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.