The Judgment (and Women Problems) of Solomon in Greenes Vision (1592)

Contemporary scholarship's ongoing fascination with Greene's nostalgic depictions of his Middle English predecessors has meant, however, that the presence of King Solomon - a third authorial ghost who materialises alongside Chaucer and Gower and intervenes in their literary dispute - has n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Early modern literary studies 2022-01, p.1-1
Main Author: Reid, Lindsay Ann
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
English literature
Folklore
Literary characters
Literary criticism
Medieval literature
Middle English
Poetry
Writing
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Summary:Contemporary scholarship's ongoing fascination with Greene's nostalgic depictions of his Middle English predecessors has meant, however, that the presence of King Solomon - a third authorial ghost who materialises alongside Chaucer and Gower and intervenes in their literary dispute - has not received sustained consideration.2 This is a lacuna that I here seek to rectify. Greene's Chaucer - who is associated, by extension, with both Ovid and Greene himself - 'stand[s] for love poetry and licentious comedy', while Greene's Gower represents 'a serious and moral literature grounded in philosophy and the liberal arts'.31 am in broad agreement with Dimmick's characterisation and with previous scholarship's more general consensus that the Vision offers a 'playful treatment of the old debate between pleasure and instruction' that employs 'blithe and merry' Chaucer (Cir) and 'sterne and grim' (Civ) Gower as highly caricatured mouthpieces.4 Nonetheless, I am also sensitive to additional, complicating factors that prior analyses of this text have stopped short of fully addressing. Using his skills of rhetoric and persuasion, each of the Vision's medieval authors will take a stance on the nature and purpose of literature by relaying a single narrative in his own characteristic style and register. Suspected of infidelity and 'greened, that with out cause she was so wrongd', the falsely accused yet spirited Kate of Greene's Chaucer is said to have masked 'her gréefe with patience, and brookt [Tomkins's] suspition' only 'till she might with credit reuenge' (D3r).
ISSN:1201-2459
1201-2459