Abstract
Gower’s poetic works show a consistent concern with the darkness and deceit associated with Avarice, the sin mostly associated with commercial transactions. In the Confessio, he calls Avarice blind. This blindness seems to work both ways. Avarice blinds humans to their humanity because it causes them to cheat and steal from others. Avarice also blinds the victims of the greedy since the greedy resort to deception in order to gain what they want. In the Confessio, Genius tells the tale of Echo as an example of the practices that he calls usury but who works as an amalgam of several of the charges raised against Avarice in the Mirour. While the conclusion of the tale is that Echo literally becomes the whisper from the cave, figuratively she stands for Gower as the duplicitous transaction from dark money.
Recommended Citation
Bertolet, Craig E.
(2019)
"Dark Money: Gower, Echo, and 'Blinde Avarice',"
Accessus: Vol. 5:
Iss.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/accessus/vol5/iss2/4
Included in
English Language and Literature Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Medieval Studies Commons