Author: Caitlin G. Watt, Department of English, Indiana University Bloomington - Personal Website, Academia.edu

Abstracts:
- »John Gower’s version of the rape of Lucretia in the Confessio Amantis begins with an episode in which the rapist, Arrons, injures himself as a deceptive ploy. Gower’s depiction of this episode, often omitted from other medieval accounts of Lucretia, complements his description of Lucrece’s inarticulate explanations and highly visible suffering to emphasize the rhetorical impact of pain. In the present moment, this tale evokes the political power of the rape narrative, but it also suggests the potential for manipulation or the further victimization of survivors if these narratives are misread. In this article, then, I propose a reconsideration of Gower’s use of the confessional mode as a means of recontextualizing rape narratives within the Confessio and developing a politics of listening. Through careful reading of confession’s successes and failures in the text, audiences might cultivate new ways of understanding and productively responding to these stories.« (Source: postmedieval)

- »Caitlin G. Watt argues that Gower demonstrates that the confessional mode in "Confessio Amantis" is inadequate "to address such traumas as sexual violence" and that he calls for "a more egalitarian ethics of listening" (273). Using "the confessional discourse of feminist narrative anti-rape politics" (273), Watt considers the intersections of Gower's "Tale of Lucrece" with #MeToo movement insofar as confession may correct the social order and heal the one confessing. She attends to the numerous examples of sexual assault in CA, exploring how survivors are vulnerable to "public and legal patterns of counteraccusation" when they speak (274). Watt turns to the "Tale of Lucrece," which she claims "best illustrates Gower's representation of the pain of confession," adding that Gower's particular version of this tale focuses on the physicality involved (275). She claims Gower's narrative suggests a kind of voyeurism as a source of narrative pleasure--pain at the expense of Lucrece for the reader's entertainment--which parallels modern media's treatment of rape survivors and their narratives. Gower, however, takes us into the private experiences of Lucrece's rape, attempting to lead us through a reading that stresses her innocence; yet, as Watt explains, the confessors in Gower's tale "fail to alleviate her pain and succeed only in using her body to achieve revenge" (278). By the end of CA, though, Amans's swoon ends his suffering--a mercy not afforded to Lucrece and other rape victims in Gower's tales (and of course in the world). Watt concludes that the type of change sought by movements such as #MeToo cannot be achieved by confessional discourse alone: "It will require careful, self-reflective listening, and perhaps also new ways of reading the texts, medieval and modern, that have shaped the way we understand sexual violence"« (Source: John Gower Bibliography Online)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England / England in the Late Middle Ages | Literature: English literature / John Gower | Literature: Fiction about rape / Confessio Amantis | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in England