『연인의 고백』에 나오는 근친상간 = Gower's Treatment of the Theme of Incest in Confessio Amantis

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Man of Law of the Canterbury Tales praises Chaucer not writing the incest stories which he thinks wicked and abominable. Unlike Chaucer, John Gower wrote two incest stories in Confessio Amantis: one is the story of Canace in Book Ⅲ, and the other is the story of Apollonius in Book Ⅷ. Gower has been criticized as being immoral for writing such horrible stories. Then the problem arises: how could we compromise "moral" Gower with the incest stories in Confessio Amantis. The problem can be solved by approaching Gower's treatment of incest stories in the frame of confession in which Genius, the priest of Love, tells various stories to Aman who suffers from love.
In the story of Canace, the incest of sister and brother. Gower seems to defend incest, though unnatural, as based on Nature and blames her father, Eolus, whose wrath causes the death of Canace and his grandson. The reason Gower seems to defend the incest of Canace should be understood in connection with the structure of Confessio Amantis. Book Ⅲ deals with the theme of Wrath so Genius tells exempla which instruct Aman to avoid wrath. Thus Gower has to focus the wrath of Eolus instead of the incest. In spite of the fact that the incest of Canace is the cause of the tragic downfall, Gower wants to impose the lesson that no man can resist what Nature has ordained, otherwise vengeance may fall.
In the story of Apollonius, Gower changes his rather ambiguous attitude toward incest to explicit condemnation of incest. The incest of Antiochus, the incest of father and daughter, motivates the adventure of Apollonius, which demonstrates that mad passion such as incest can be controlled by reason to produce the kind of "honest" love which Apollonius represents and that creates genuine harmony within a family and supports the common good of civilization as a whole.
From the two exampla of incest Gower is educating his reader, especially Aman, the dangers of excessive, non-rational passion, And through Apollonius' example Gower further shows the incestuous can be conquered and the way to make the conquest. When Apollonius learns the strength of his free will against forces of incest, Aman gains confidence in his ability to extricate from the Court of Love.