The Authority of Impersonation: Gower’s Confessio Amantis and the Secretum Secretorum

The pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Secretum secretorum uses essentially literary techniques to impersonate the voice of Aristotle writing to Alexander the Great about political, medical, and occult topics. John Gower’s Confessio Amantis borrows the theme of Aristotle’s counsel to Alexander in Book Seven, and its first version is addressed to Richard II, suggesting parallels between Gower and Aristotle as counselors to kings. The comparison of the two texts demonstrates that unlike the Secretum, the Confessio Amantis takes pains to treat Aristotle as a textual rather than embodied authority, displacing the Secretum’s concerns with the body and with occult knowledge onto the figure of Alexander’s biological father and tutor Nectanabus. While Gower does not impersonate Aristotle, he uses many of the Secretum’s techniques as he moves between his various literary personae in the poem, culminating in his return to the embodied and more selfaware character named John Gower.