SOURCE: Baker, Denise N. “The Priesthood of Genius: A Study of the Medieval Tradition.” Speculum 51, no. 2 (April 1976): 277-91.

[In the following essay, Baker vindicates Gower's characterization of the allegorical figure Genius in the Confessio Amantis, which has often been viewed as inconsistent and faulty.]

The allegorical figure Genius plays a significant role in three important works of medieval literature: Alain de Lille's De planctu Naturae, Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose, and John Gower's Confessio Amantis. Although scholars have commented extensively on the meaning and function of Genius in the first two works, the interpretation of this character in the Confessio Amantis has proven problematic. The crucial difficulty involves the dual priesthood of Genius in Gower's poem. As a priest of Venus the character is commissioned to instruct Amans about love; but as an orthodox priest he must also teach virtue. This complication of Genius's role is considered the source of the poem's most serious fault, for, as G. C. Macaulay observes, the “conception of a Confessor who as priest has to expound a system of morality, while as a devotee of Venus he is concerned only with the affairs of love, can hardly be called altogether … consistent. …”¹ More specifically, Gower is accused of inconsistent characterization because Genius's repudiation of Venus's divinity (Book V) and his discussion of the education of Alexander (Book VII) allegedly violate his role as Venus's priest.²

Although several critics attempt to vindicate Gower of this charge, their arguments do not adequately explain the dual priesthood of Genius in the Confessio Amantis. C. S. Lewis, for example, defends the appropriateness of Genius's denunciation of Venus by defining the allegorical figure in psychomachic terms. “Genius here stands for Love—for that whole complex in the lover's mind which he calls his ‘love’, and of which he has made his deity and his father confessor. …”³ Lewis identifies Genius as the personification of the lover's own gradual realization that his love is folly. He is “the master passion itself there speaking with a doubtful voice, and presently hinting that it knows (the conscious will shouting it down in vain)—that it knows itself to be all other than the tongue claims of it—that its foundations are crumbling—that its superstructure is but a tissue of illusions and decaying habits. … He is simply the lover's deepest ‘heart’, telling him bitter truths, now no longer avoidable …” (p. 220). This psychomachic description of the Genius of the Confessio Amantis suggests the character's affinity to the tutelary spirit of the classical period, the Genius B, whose influence on medieval literature Lewis emphatically denies (p. 361). Thus, in his refutation of a common critical objection to Gower's Genius, Lewis raises additional questions about this allegorical figure, for he fails to clarify the relationship between this inner, individual Genius and “the patron of generation” of De planctu Naturae from whom, he claims, “the Genius of Jean de Meun and of Gower directly descends” (p. 362). Lewis himself seems aware of this problem, for he acknowledges, rather offhandedly, in his discussion of Gower's poem that “if we insist on the original significance of Genius (the god of reproduction) there may be some absurdity,” but he offers no suggestion for resolving this contradiction in his argument (p. 219).

Recently, however, the connections between the Genius of the Confessio Amantis and the figures depicted in the De planctu Naturae and the Roman de la Rose have been explored in more detail by George Economou and Donald Schueler. Economou distinguishes between the philosophical position this character represents for Alain de Lille and Gower, on the one hand, and for Jean de Meun, on the other.⁴ Gower, he argues, restores “the old accord between Venus and Natura” described in the De planctu Naturae which had been inverted for purposes of irony in the Roman de la Rose (p. 208). The relationship between Genius and Venus in the Confessio Amantis is thus analogous to the relationship between Genius and Natura in the De planctu Naturae. The Venus of the English poem is not the Venus scelestis of illicit courtly love but Venus caelestis, the uncorrupted goddess who originally assisted Alain's Natura in the work of procreation. Although he does not discriminate between Alain's Natura and Jean's, Schueler arrives at a similar conclusion.⁵ And both critics agree that as servant of the vicaria Dei, Gower's Venus is, by extension, the servant of God. Thus, no tension exists between Genius's roles as Venus's priest and as orthodox priest because, according to Schueler, the “natural love which he serves, and which he is gradually defining, is one wherein the same moral laws obtain which apply in other spheres of human conduct” (p. 248). However, as Economou himself admits, this argument does not resolve “all of the difficulty the character raises in our minds …” (p. 210). For if Gower's Venus is the servant of a moral Natura, why then does Genius repudiate her in Book V?⁶ Moreover, neither Economou nor Schueler inquires about the characteristic which Gower's Genius shares with his literary precursors since he is no longer associated with procreation (a question which implies, of course, that the description of Genius as “the patron of generation” is too limited to explain the relationship between the three manifestations of this allegorical figure in medieval literature).

The ultimate consideration in a study of the Genius of the Confessio Amantis thus must be the way that Gower adapts this figure from the works of his literary predecessors, Alain de Lille and Jean de Meun, to suit his own purposes. Why does he continue to cast Genius as a priest while disassociating him from Natura and ignoring the role he shares with her as procreatrix? And what is the significance of Genius's dual ministry in the Confessio Amantis? But before these questions can be answered, we must return to the larger tradition and the problem implicit in Lewis's argument. His description of Genius as the personification of the voice of Amans's own “deepest ‘heart’” coupled with his antithetical insistence that this figure descends from “the patron of generation” indicates a need to re-examine the medieval concept of Genius to ascertain whether it included any nuance of Genius as tutelary spirit. I will begin, therefore, by studying the references to Genius in the writings of Bernardus Silvestris, Apuleius, and Martianus Capella which provide the basis for Alain's delineation of this character in the De planctu Naturae.⁷

I

Alain de Lille emphasizes the significance of Genius in the De planctu Naturae by identifying this allegorical figure as Natura's “other self.” In the letter she sends to him through Hymen, she writes: “Natura, Dei gratia mundanae civitatis vicaria procuratrix, Genio, sibi alteri, salutem. …”⁸ As her “other self” Genius participates in Natura's roles as procreatrix and moral instructor. These two functions of Genius are represented by his dual commission in the poem as scribe and priest. Like Natura he is artifex, an artist who “styli subsequentis subsidio imagines rerum sub umbra picturae ad veritatem suae essentiae transmigrantes, vita sui generis munerabat” (p. 517). Furthermore, Natura considers him the appropriate executor of her moral judgment, for she says to Hymen: “Genium vero qui mihi in sacerdotali ancillatur officio, decens est sciscitari, qui eos a naturalium rerum catalogo, a meae jurisdictionis confinio, meae judiciariae potestatis assistente praesentia, vestrae assentionis conjuvente gratia, pastorali virga excommunicationis eliminet” (p. 510). As priest, then, Genius shares Natura's moral mandate and acts as intermediary between her and man. In his first role as scribe the Genius of De planctu Naturae is consonant with the tradition C. S. Lewis cites and is clearly derived from Bernardus Silvestris's De mundi universitate. But in ascribing to Genius the duties of priest Alain is influenced by an aspect of the medieval concept of this figure also evident in Bernardus's work but disregarded by Lewis—the idea of Genius as a tutelary spirit.

Although seldom noted, genius in De mundi universitate is a generic rather than a proper name referring, in its most general sense, to “that which has spiritual or heavenly quality.”⁹ More specifically, Bernardus describes four distinct orders of genii who inhabit the various regions of his cosmos. The sphere of the fixed stars and each of the planets are governed by an Oyarses or genius (2.5, lines 45-8, 75-7, 131-7). The garden of Physis, Granusion, in the lower moist air, is also presided over by a genius (2.9, lines 32-4). Both of these classes of genii are involved in the work of creating man. “The genii of the heavens ruled by Urania (the stars and planets) contribute individual form for the soul descending into the first underworld—the sublunary realm. The genius of Physis's Granusion … as a principle of plant growth aids the descent of the soul into the second underworld—the body” (Nitzsche, p. 104). The procreative functions of these first two orders of genii in the De mundi universitate certainly influence the depiction of Genius as “patron of generation” in the De planctu Naturae; but because Alain's dominant interest is the moral meaning of his allegory, he simplifies Bernardus's complex cosmology by expressing the generative work of these genii through Genius's role as scribe.

The prototype for Alain's Genius as scribe in the De mundi universitate is, as critics have long recognized, Pantomorphos, a genius whose function in the generative process is symbolized by drawing.

Hoc igitur in loco pantomorpho persona deus venerabili et dectepitae sub imagine senectutis occurrit. Illic Oyarses quidem erat et genius in artem et officium pictoris et figurantis addictus. In subteriancente enim mundo rerum facies universa caelum sequitur sumptisque de caelo proprietatibus ad imaginem quam conversio contulit figuratur. Namque inpossibile est formam unam quamque alteri simillimam nasci horarum et climatum distantibus punctis. Oyarses igitur circuli quem pantomorphon Graecia, Latinitas nominat omniformem, formas rebus omnes omnibus et associat et ascribit.¹⁰

Bernardus's Pantomorphos, in turn, is modeled after a figure of the same name in the Asclepius. “11 As ruler of the fixed stars, Pantomorphos is related to the Augustan astrological concept of Genius, the god who, according to Horace, “temperat astrum” and thus determines the temperament and controls the destiny of each individual born (Nitzsche, p. 29). Clearly, then, Alain's characterization of Genius as scribe is derived from the description of Pantomorphos transmitted through the De mundi universitate from the Hermetic tradition.

Bernardus's cosmology, however, includes two other orders of genii which provide a means of explaining Genius's priestly role in the De planctu Naturae: the intermediary genii who inhabit the upper air (2.7, lines 66-85) and the twin sexual genii residing in the human genitalia (2.14, lines 153-80). In the work of these twin sexual genii charged with regulating human procreation, Winthrop Wetherbee discerns “something like the function of the traditional tutelary guide of the individual soul.”¹² And he attributes Alain de Lille's characterization of Genius as priest to a conflation of these microcosmic genii with the cosmic genius Pantomorphos. Although Wetherbee's analysis is a significant contribution to the study of Chartrian thought, his discussion of the priestly role of Alain's Genius requires some modification. For, in citing the sexual genii of the De mundi universitate as an influence on the depiction of Genius in De planctu Naturae, Wetherbee overlooks the apparent parallelism between Bernardus's description of these figures and Alain's characterization of the uncorrupted Venus, Hymen, and Cupid (p. 470). Like the sexual genii, Venus caelestis and Hymen are responsible for insuring the continuity of the human race against the destructive power of Fate by means of the legitimate sexual act; the genital weapons of Bernardus's genii are transformed into the hammer and anvil of Alain's Venus, but the process of reproduction, the transmission of the correct forms from generation to generation, which these figures oversee is the same.

Although Wetherbee is wrong in ascribing Genius's priesthood to these twin sexual genii, he does direct attention to their tutelary function; in this respect they are analogous not to the cosmic genii as he contends, but to the genii of the upper air who mediate between the divine and earthly realms. Bernardus's account of these intermediary genii emphasizes the custodial role associated with them.

Cum igitur homo condictante quidem providentia novum figmentum, nova fuerit creatura, de clementissimo et secundario spirituum ordine deligendus est genius in eius custodiam deputatus. Cuius tam ingenita, tam refixa benignitas, ut ex odio malitiae displicentis pollutate fugiat conversantem. et cum quid virtutis agendum insumitur, sacris per inspirationem mentibus assolet interesse. … genius, qui de nascendi principiis homini copulatus vitanda illi discrimina vel mentis praesagio vel soporis imagine vel prodigioso rerum spectaculo configurat

(2.7, lines 67-74, 82-5)

In creating the human body according to the model of the macrocosm, Physis duplicates the tutelary function of these intermediary genii in the work of the microcosmic genii who regulate the earthly or sexual region of the body under the auspices of the divine, man's mind (2.13, lines 95-105). And it is this more comprehensive concept of genius as a moral guide rather than the limited role as regulator of sexuality that determines the depiction of this allegorical figure as priest in the De planctu Naturae.

A study of Bernardus Silvestris's De mundi universitate thus demonstrates that the term genius involves a more complex significatio in Chartrian thought than the phrase “universal god of generation” implies. Although three of the four orders of genii described are engaged in procreation, the custodial role of the fourth group is clearly expressed. Moreover, Bernardus's depiction of genii as guardian spirits is not, as Lewis contends, alien to the medieval concept of the figure. The tradition of the tutelary Genius is derived from two central texts of the School of Chartres, the De deo Socrates of Apuleius and the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella.

Apuleius establishes for the Middle Ages the precedent of casting Genius as a moral guide by equating this Roman god with the daemons of Platonic cosmology in De deo Socrates.

Nam quodam significatu et animus humanus, etiam nunc in corpore situs, δαιμων nuncupatur. … Igitur et bona cupido animi, bonus Deus est. Unde nonnulli arbitrantur, ut iam prius dictum est, εύδαιμονας dici beatos, quorum daemon bonus, id est, animus virtute perfectus est. Eum nostra lingua, ut ego interpretor, haud sciam an bono, certe quidem meo periculo, poteris Genium vocare; quod is Deus, qui est animus sui cuique, quamquam sit immortalis, tamen quodammodo cum homine gignitur: ut eae preces, quibus Genium et Genitam precamur, coniunctionem nostram nexumque videantur mihi obtestari, corpus atque animum duobus nominibus comprehendentes, quorum communio et copulatio sumus.¹³

By classifying Genius as daemon Apuleius identifies him as one of the secondary gods who act as mediators between heaven and earth. “Ceterum sunt quaedam divinae mediae potestates, inter summum aethera et infimas terras, in isto intersitae aeris spatio, per quas et desideria nostra et merita ad Deos commeant. hos Graeci nomine δαιμονας nuncupant: inter terricolas coelicolasque vectores, hinc precum, inde donorum; qui ultro citro portant, hinc petitiones, inde suppetias, ceu quidam utriusque interpretes, et salutigeri” (pp. 132-33). Thus, in Apuleius's cosmology, Genius as daemon is an intermediary between man and Deus summus, a precursor of Alain's priestly Genius, the intermediary between man and Natura. Furthermore, Apuleius's discussion emphasizes Genius's tutelary role. While he does not clarify the relationship between Genius and the more exalted order of daemons he describes later as the guardians allotted to each individual, Apuleius does insist that Genius is a good daemon, perfected in virtue, and synonymous with the best desires of the human soul.¹⁴ This depiction of Genius as moral guide coupled with the reference to him as a spirit who, though immortal, is in some sense created with each man and accompanies him through life attests to the presence of a tutelary Genius in one of the primary sources of medieval Platonism.¹⁵

Although Apuleius does not clarify the relation between the tutelary spirit and the god of generation (except for a difficult reference to the union of body and soul), it is not unusual for both meanings of Genius to be invoked simultaneously. Augustine, for example, testifies to the prevalence of this usage in the late classical period by citing two seemingly contradictory definitions of Genius in his attempt to discredit paganism. “Quid est Genius? ‘Deus,’ inquit, ‘qui praepositus est ac vim habet omnium rerum gignendarum.’ … Et cum alio loco Genium dicit esse uniuscujusque animum rationalem, et ideo esse singulos singulorum. …”¹⁶ Despite Augustine's objections, the dual meaning of Genius is transmitted to the Middle Ages through the influential Martianus Capella. In the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, he writes:

Sed quoniam unicuique superiorum deorum singuli quique deserviunt, ex illorum arbitrio istorumque comitatu et generalis omnium praesul, et specialis singulis mortalibus Genius admovetur, quem etiam Praestitem, quod praesit gerundis omnibus, vocaverunt. … Ideoque Genius dicitur, quoniam quum quis hominum genitus fuerit, mox eidem copulatur. Hic tutelator fidissimusque germanus animos omnium mentesque custodit. Et quoniam cogitationum arcana superae annuntiat potestati, etiam Angelus poterit nuncupari. Hos omnes Graeci δαιμονας dicunt. …¹⁷

Martianus's account of Genius is obviously a conflation of the two essential meanings of the term: the Genius of generation is fused with Genius the tutelary spirit. And from this two-fold tradition, also subscribed to by Bernardus Silvestris, Alain de Lille derives the dual commission of Genius as scribe and priest in the De planctu Naturae.

Moreover, in Alain's allegory Genius's functions as artifex and sacerdos are intrinsically related. Because he participates in Natura's procreative duties, he also shares her responsibilities as moral guide. For by virtue of informing the various creatures of the sublunary sphere with “vita sui generis,” Genius establishes the innate natural law which governs these creatures. Furthermore, genius is also a philosophical term which Alain equates with this inherent natural law. “Per substantificos genios, id est per substantiales naturas. Genius enim natura vel Deus nature dicitur.”¹⁸ In other words, genius denotes not only the god of nature, the traditional scribe who impresses form on matter, but also the nature of the thing created, its essence, and concomitantly, its inherent natural law. For man, this substantifying genius is reason or, according to Apuleius, the soul. Thus, Wetherbee is correct when he writes that “Genius, seeking to preserve man in his ideal relationship with Natura, is the innate principle of rational dignity and vision. …” (Platonism and Poetry, p. 207). But Genius's tutelary function is due not to his regulation of sexuality, as Wetherbee argues, but to his identification as man's substantial nature, his reason. Alain's definition of genius as “natura vel Deus nature” thus assimilates the two meanings of the term in the medieval tradition: the allegorical Genius in the De planctu Naturae is both the tutelary spirit, inherent in each individual as reason, and the god of generation, both priest and scribe.

II

In the Roman de la Rose Jean de Meun affirms the same moral position as Alain de Lille does in the De planctu Naturae. However, Jean offers this endorsement through the mode of comic irony, for he dramatizes the absurdity of man's sins against reason. And because of this difference of mode, Jean's Natura and Genius are not identical to the figures of the same name in Alain's poem.¹⁹ Jean de Meun divides Natura's dual offices as procreatrix and moral guide in De planctu Naturae between his Natura and Raison. The authority of the goddess in the Roman de la Rose is thus radically diminished. From her man receives

Treis forces, que de cors que d'ame,
Car bien puis dire senz mentir:
Jou faz estre, vivre e sentir.
…
Senz faille, de l'entendement,
Quenois je bien que vraiement
Celui ne lui donai je mie;
La ne s'estent pas ma baillie.
Ne sui pas sage ne poissant
De faire rien si quenoissant.
Onques ne fis rien pardurable,
Quanque je faz est corrompable.(20)

Natura's domain, then, is restricted to man's sensitive nature and this limitation is indicated by her identification with the tools of the forge, the hammer and the anvil associated in De Planctu Naturae with the uncorrupted Venus, originally Natura's subvicaria in the work of procreation. Consequently, the law Natura enforces in the Roman de la Rose is the natural law which governs the animal kingdon rather than the law of reason, unique to man. Thus, her complaint is not, as in Alain's poem, a lament about man's violations of the rule of reason, for morality is clearly beyond her ken.

Senz faille, de touz les pechiez
Don li chaitis est entechiez,
A Deu les lais, bien s'en chevisse,
Quant li plaira si l'en punisse.

(lines 19323-26)

Rather, she tells Genius, she complains of the same men that the God of Love complains, because they refuse to use the tools she has given them (lines 19327-34). Therefore, in an ironic reversal of the De planctu Naturae, she commissions her priest Genius to excommunicate those who through chastity sin against nature by refusing to reproduce the species.

The changes which Jean de Meun makes in the figure Natura are paralleled by similar alterations of Genius. In the Roman de la Rose the poet emphasizes Genius's role as priest; he adds the confession of Natura and the sermon to Love's barons. But, ironically, Genius's claim to sacerdotal authority has been undermined by Natura's disassociation from her function as moral instructor. Genius, as Natura's “other self,” is qualified to share in her work as procreatrix; but because she no longer has jurisdiction over man's rational faculties, his activities as spiritual advisor are absurd. And Jean de Meun makes it hilariously clear that Genius is a false priest. The Mass which he offers is a celebration not of the eternal, but “De toutes choses corrompables” (line 16282); and the excommunication he pronounces against celibates is based on a literal interpretation of the Biblical injunction to “increase and multiply.” For Genius is, as Fleming indicates, “unregenerately carnal and literal” (p. 210). This priest knows nothing of the supernatural and he believes that God's highest purpose for mankind is physical perpetuation. Furthermore, because of the schism between Genius and Raison, the moral guide in the Roman de la Rose, the amoral procreative powers which he represents are easily subverted to Venus's illicit purposes. His investiture as bishop by the God of Love dramatizes this unwitting submission of nature to vice. Thus, in the Roman de la Rose the hierarchy established by Alain is inverted; divorced from Raison, Natura and Genius become servants of Venus scelestis.²¹

Genius's inability in the Roman de la Rose to make moral distinctions indicates the crucial difference between this false priest and the true one of De planctu Naturae. For Jean de Meun's allegorical figure is not the personification of man's innate tutelary spirit, reason, but rather of his inherent concupiscence, identified as Genius by Guillaume de Conches in his commentary on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Consolation of Philosophy.

Hujus est coniunx Euridice, id est naturalis concupiscentia que unicuique coniuncta est: nullus enim sine ea nec etiam puer unius diei in hac vita esse potest. Unde iterum finxerunt poete quemdam deum esse, scilicet genium, qui nascitur cum unoquoque et moritur. Unde Horatius: deus albus et ater mortalis in unumquodque caput. Genius est naturalis concupiscentia. Sed hec naturalis concupiscentia merito dicitur Euridice, id est boni iudicatio, quia quod quisque iudicat bonum, sive ita sit sive non, concupiscit.²²

Guillaume's definition of Genius is different from the traditional concept in the same way that Jean de Meun's Genius is different from Alain's. In both cases, Genius is stripped of his tutelary role. He represents natural concupiscence, that aspect of human nature, distinct from reason, which regards everything it desires to be good, whether or not it indeed is. And because as natural concupiscence Genius's claim to moral authority is spurious, he is easily corrupted by the adulterous Venus.

III

The Genius whom John Gower inherits through Alain de Lille and Jean de Meun is thus an extremely complex allegorical figure. In the works of both Gower's predecessors, Genius plays a dual role as priest and scribe, but his legitimate function as moral guide in Alain's poem is undermined by Jean de Meun for purposes of comic irony. In adapting his Genius from this literary tradition, Gower chooses to disregard the character's conventional association with Natura as procreatrix in order to concentrate on his tutelary role which, by the fourteenth century, includes the potential for either a true or a false priesthood.

And it is precisely this potential which accounts for the dual priesthood of Genius in the Confessio Amantis.

Thi schrifte to oppose and hiere,
My Sone, I am assigned hiere
Be Venus the godesse above,
Whos Prest I am touchende of love.
Bot natheles for certein skile
I mot algate and nedes wile
Noght only make my spekynges
Of love, bot of othre thinges,
That touchen to the cause of vice.
For that belongeth to thoffice
Of Prest, whos ordre that I bere.

(1, lines 233-43)

By attributing this double mission to Genius, Gower skillfully fuses the two different meanings of this allegorical figure which he found in De planctu Naturae and the Roman de la Rose. As a priest of Venus, Gower's character is similar to Jean's; he is Genius as natural concupiscence, the amoral law of kinde. But Gower's Genius, unlike his precursor in the Roman de la Rose, also affirms the law of man's complete nature which his prototype in De planctu Naturae proclaimed. For, as orthodox priest, Gower's figure is analogous to Alain's; he is Genius as reason, the distinctly human natural law. In his discussion of chastity in Book VII, Genius informs Amans about the relationship between the laws of kinde and reson.²³

For god the lawes hath assissed
Als wel to reson as to kinde,
Bot he the bestes wolde binde
Only to lawes of nature,
Bot to the mannes creature
God yaf him reson forth withal,
Wherof that he nature schal
Upon the causes modefie,
That he schal do no lecherie,
And yit he schal hise lustes have.

(7, lines 5372-81)

The dual priesthood of Gower's Genius, then, testifies to the English poet's awareness of the difference between this character's tutelary role in the De planctu Naturae and in the Roman de la Rose. Genius as priest of Venus teaches Amans the law of kinde espoused by his counterpart in Jean de Meun's poem. But the inadequacy of this natural law as a moral standard for man is expressed by Genius the orthodox priest. Through this union of the laws of kinde and reson, Gower restores the moral authority which Genius originally exercised in the De planctu Naturae.²⁴

A brief analysis of the lesson on wrath in Book III reveals the skillful manner in which Gower uses the dual priesthood of Genius to demonstrate the moral fallibility of natural inclinations. Genius begins the instruction about wrath with an exemplum which depicts this vice as a sin against nature as well as reason. After Amans confesses to anger resulting from his melancholy or moodiness, Genius responds with the story of Canace and Machaire. Although King Eolus is harshly condemned for his merciless ire, Genius's attitude toward the incestuous children is curiously sympathetic. He partially exonerates them because the couple succumbs to incest in youth,

Whan kinde assaileth the corage
With love and doth him forto bowe,
That he no reson can allowe,
Bot halt the lawes of nature:
For whom that love hath under cure,
As he is blind himself, riht so
He makth his client blind also.

(3, lines 154-60)

In the brief allusion to the Ovidian tale of Tiresias and the snakes which follows, Genius again emphasizes that wrath is a more heinous sin than lust because it violates the law of kinde.

Lo thus, my Sone, Ovide hath write,
Wherof thou miht be reson wite,
More is a man than such a beste:
So mihte it nevere ben honeste
A man to wraththen him to sore
Of that an other doth the lore
Of kinde, in which is no malice,
Bot only that it is a vice:
And though a man be resonable,
Yit after kinde he is menable
To love, wher he wole or non.

(3, lines 381-91)

Genius's argument, of course, conforms to the medieval hierarchy of the Deadly Sins; lust is the least reprehensible because the most natural. But in emphasizing the irresistibility of love rather than its sinfulness, he endorses a position similar to that of Genius in the Roman de la Rose. Through this initial section of Book III, then, Genius's role as priest of Venus dominates and tempers his responsibility as orthodox priest.

As Book III continues, however, Genius assumes his second role as priest of reason and gradually demonstrates the limitations of natural concupiscence as a moral guide. In the confession of contek and homicide, sins against patience and mercy, Genius again refers to the law of kinde, but his attitude toward it is altered. Acknowledging his guilt of contek, or foolish haste, Amans describes the inner conflict between reason and will which love makes him suffer.

Reson seith that I scholde leve
To love, wher ther is no leve
To spede, and will seith therayein
That such an herte is to vilein,
Which dar noght love and til he spede,
Let hope serve at such a nede.

(3, lines 1179-84)

Although Genius remains sympathetic to Amans's plight, he counsels the lover to abide by reason rather than will.

Thou dost, my Sone, ayein the riht;
Bot love is of so gret a miht,
His lawe mai noman refuse,
So miht thou thee the betre excuse.
And natheles thou schalt be lerned
That will scholde evere be governed
Of reson more than of kinde.

(3, lines 1193-99)

And in the succeeding stories of Diogenes and Alexander, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Orestes, Genius argues for the need to follow the law of reson even if it conflicts with the law of kinde. In the first of these three tales, the priest makes his point in general terms. Diogenes, a surrogate for Genius, convinces Alexander that willfulness is the cause of sin, but no specific mention is made of lust (3, lines 1270-92). However, in the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, Genius begins to repudiate love itself.

For love is of a wonder kinde,
And hath hise wittes ofte blinde,
That thei fro mannes reson falle;
Bot whan that it is so befalle
That will schal the corage lede,
In loves cause it is to drede.

(3, lines 1323-28)

And Genius denounces love outright through the character of Thisbe.

O thou which cleped art Venus,
Goddesse of love, and thou, Cupide,
Which loves cause hast forto guide,
I wot now wel that ye be blinde,
Of thilke unhapp which I now finde
Only betwen my love and me.
This Piramus, which hiere I se
Bledende, what hath he deserved?
For he youre heste hath kept and served,
And was yong and I bothe also:
Helas, why do ye with ous so?

(3, lines 1462-72)

The blindness of love which signifies the irresistible force of natural law in the story of Canace and Machaire is given a more sinister meaning in this tale, for it refers to the cruelty of Venus and Cupid. Nevertheless, the lovers are sympathetically portrayed. In the story of Orestes, however, the lover is depicted as the villain. This tale is a reversal of the initial one, for Climestre, like Eolus, is guilty of murder, but her sin of homicide is incited by lust. Thus, Genius teaches Amans that obeying the law of kinde can, paradoxically, lead to unkinde acts; through this tale the priest reveals the inadequacy of the natural law as a moral guide.

Genius reiterates the need to obey both kinde and reson in his condemnation of war at the end of Book III.

Men schal noght finde upon his liche
A beste forto take his preie:
And sithen kinde hath such a weie,
Thanne is it wonder of a man,
Which kynde hath and resoun can,
That he wol owther more or lasse
His kinde and resoun overpasse,
And sle that is to him semblable.
So is the man noght resonable
Ne kinde, and that is noght honeste,
Whan he is worse than a beste.

(3, lines 2588-98)

In the case of homicide these two laws correspond, for murder violates the precepts of both nature and reason. But such accord is not always achieved; lust, for example, is prompted by nature, but this sexual urge must be regulated by man's reason. Throughout the Confessio Amantis, then, Gower distinguishes between the law of kinde and the law of reson, between the values of Genius in the Roman de la Rose and those of his precursor in De planctu Naturae. For, as this examination of Book III demonstrates, the English poet uses the dual priesthood of Genius to correct the unorthodox position enunciated by the false priest in Jean de Meun's poem and to restore to this figure the moral authority exercised by Alain's true priest.

This examination of the dual priesthood of Genius also refutes the charge of inconsistency leveled against Gower, for this character's discussion of the education of Alexander and his repudiation of Venus's divinity are not inappropriate to his role in the poem. Genius's double ministry qualifies him to teach Amans in Book VII about both kinde and reson, about natural science (the domain of Jean's Natura) and morality (included in the larger jurisdiction of Alain's Natura). Likewise, the combined office of Gower's Genius explains his seemingly contradictory rejection of Venus in Book V. For the Venus of the Confessio Amantis is analogous to the amoral Natura in the Roman de la Rose (but not, as Economou and Schueler contend, to the moral Natura of the De planctu Naturae). She is natural sexuality divorced from reason and, therefore, vulnerable to perversion. Thus the company of lovers which attends Venus in Book VIII includes not only the four virtuous wives, Penelope, Lucrece, Alceste, and Alcione, but also illicit lovers such as Paris and Helen, Tristam and Isolde, and Narcissus. And although Genius condemns Amans's love because it is unreasonable and, therefore, sinful, Venus objects only because Amans is old and impotent (8.2076-98, 2403-20). The law of kinde which Gower's Venus represents is morally ambiguous, for the sexual act which she incites can either be subject to reason and therefore moral or subverted by lust and thus immoral. And it is Venus acting in this last manner that Genius, as the spokesman of man's complete, integrated nature, rejects in Book V.

The Genius of the Confessio Amantis, then, is not an inconsistent figure but rather a complex and sophisticated assimilation of his two precursors in the literary tradition—an assimilation which proves Gower's thorough understanding of De planctu Naturae and the Roman de la Rose. Aware of the restrictions which Jean de Meun had imposed on this character in order to achieve comic irony, Gower establishes the combined priesthood of Genius to demonstrate the limitations of natural concupiscence as a moral guide. By making Genius the representative not only of man's carnal nature but also of his rationality, the English poet reinvests this allegorical figure with the true priestly authority originally bestowed by Alain de Lille and restores him to his legitimate role as tutelary spirit. C. S. Lewis's psychomachic description of Gower's character is thus partially correct, for Genius is Amans's inner voice—the voice, however, of his reason, not his love.

Notes

1. The English Works of John Gower, 1, ed. G. C. Macaulay, EETS (1900; repr. London, 1969), p. xix. All quotations of the Confessio Amantis are from this edition.

2. E. C. Knowlton, “Genius as an Allegorical Figure,” Modern Language Notes 39 (1924), 90.

3. The Allegory of Love (New York, 1958), p. 220.

4. “The Character Genius in Alan de Lille, Jean de Meun, and John Gower,” Chaucer Review 4 (1970), 203-210.

5. “Gower's Characterization of Genius in the Confessio Amantis,” Modern Language Quarterly 33 (1972), 240-256.

6. Schueler attempts to explain Genius's repudiation of Venus by differentiating between her allegorical and mythological significance. However, he concludes that the “passage is a muddle, the only one of its kind in this huge poem. …” (p. 252).

7. For other discussions of Genius see E. R. Curtius, “Zur Literarästhetik des Mittelalters II,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 58 (1938), 193-194; E. C. Knowlton, “The Allegorical Figure Genius,” Classical Philology 15 (1920), 380-384; G. Raynaud de Lage, Alain de Lille (Paris, 1951), pp. 89-93. The most thorough discussion of the tradition of Genius is a dissertation by Jane Chance Nitzsche, “Classical and Medieval Archetypes of the Figure Genius in the De Mundi Universitate of Bernardus Silvestris and the De Planctu Naturae of Alanus de Insulis,” University of Illinois, 1971. I regret that I could not consult Professor Nitzsche's The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York, 1975) which was published after this study was completed.

8. Alain de Lille, De planctu Naturae, in The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists, 2, Rolls Series 59, ed. Thomas Wright (1872; repr. New York, 1964), p. 511. All quotations of De planctu Naturae are from this edition.

9. Robert B. Woolsey, “Bernard Silvester and the Hermetic Asclepius,” Traditio 6 (1948), 343. See also the references to genius in Brian Stock, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century (Princeton, 1972).

10. Bernardus Silvestris, De mundi universitate, ed. Carl Sigmund Barach and Johann Wrobel (1876; repr. Frankfurt a. M., 1964), 2.3, lines 89-100.

11. Walter Scott, ed., Hermetica, 1 (Oxford, 1924), p. 324.

12. “The Function of Poetry in the ‘De Planctu Naturae’ of Alain de Lille,” Traditio 25 (1969), 112-113. See also Wetherbee's discussions of Genius in “The Literal and the Allegorical: Jean de Meun and the ‘de Planctu Naturae’,” Mediaeval Studies 33 (1971), 264-291, and in Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century (Princeton, 1972).

13. Apuleius, Opera omnia, 2, ed. Franz von Oudendorp (1823), p. 150-152.

14. Apuleius identifies these guardian daemons with each individual's conscience, pp. 154-156. See also the chapter on demons in Paul Friedländer, Plato: An Introduction, 1, Bollingen Series 59, trans. Hans Meyerhoff (New York, 1958), pp. 32-58. Calcidius refers to Socrates's protecting daemon in his commentary on the Timaeus. See J. H. Waszink, ed., Plato Latinus, 4 (London, 1962), p. 199.

15. Apuleius's definition of Genius as “bona cupido animi” apparently influenced the definitions of Servius and Bernardus Silvestris. Commenting on Book VI of the Aeneid, Servius writes, “nam cum nascimur, duos genios sortimur: unus est qui hortatur ad bona, alter qui depravat ad mala.” See George Thilo and Herman Hagen, eds., Vergilii Aeneidos commentarius, 2 (1881). Also commenting on the Aeneid, Bernardus casts Euridice as natural concupiscence or “boni appetitus … data est enim ad appetendum bonum.” See Wilhelm Riedel, ed., Commentum super sex libros Eneidos Virgilii (1924).

16. De civitate Dei 7.13, PL 41:205.

17. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, ed. Ulrich Friedrich Kopp (Frankfurt, 1836), pp. 205-207.

18. Textes Inédits, ed. Marie Thérèse d'Alverny (Paris, 1965), p. 228.

19. For a similar but more complete discussion of the difference between Alain's Genius and Jean's see George Economou, The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 105-124. My interpretation of the Roman de la Rose agrees with that presented by John V. Fleming in The Roman de la Rose: A Study in Allegory and Iconography (Princeton, 1969). However, Fleming does not distinguish between Genius in De planctu Naturae and the Roman de la Rose.

20. Roman de la Rose, 4, ed. Ernest Langlois (Paris, 1920-24), lines 19036-38, 19055-62. All quotations of the Roman de la Rose are from this edition.

21. Wetherbee views the conception of the child at the end of the poem as a fulfillment of Genius's command to renew the race and as evidence of a providential order which works through man's cupidity and deception. Therefore, he argues that Genius is not merely the hapless tool of Venus. See “The Literal and Allegorical,” pp. 282-286. However, as Economou points out, “Whether this means a victory for Natura or for Venus, one thing is certain: Alan's Natura could never have participated in such a ‘cooperative’ effort, for in her view, Venus and her son were responsible for the waywardness of man” (The Goddess Natura, p. 120).

22. Cited by Edouard Jeauneau, “L'usage de la notion d'integumentum à travers les gloses de Guillaume de Conches,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 32 (1957), 46. Although Bernardus Silvestris also identifies Genius as natural concupiscence, he defines this phrase as a longing for the good rather than an amoral desire. Thus Bernardus's use of the term is very different from Guillaume's. See Nitzsche, pp. 63-64.

23. I am indebted to Professor Kurt Olsson of the University of Idaho for these observations about the importance of the distinction between kinde and reson in the Confessio Amantis. In his manuscript, The Major Poems of John Gower: An Interpretation, Professor Olsson demonstrates the skill with which Gower develops the distinction between these two laws as a structural principle in the Confessio Amantis. Because the poet clearly differentiates between kinde and reson, Schueler's contention that the natural law is identical with morality in the English poem is mistaken.

24. Although Economou identifies Gower's Genius with Alain's, his discussion ignores the sophisticated understanding of this complex literary tradition which the dual priesthood of Genius in the Confessio Amantis reveals.