Welcome to The Gower Project at WMU! I am your designated guide, and while I appear to be somewhat rigid and diminutive—I am a miniature statue, after all—it is not without a sense of purpose that I offer some practical advice about how to navigate the site and get the most out of the experience (I’ll leave the humor to Lego Gower). What I and those who have animated my voice consider to be most important about this site is that you find what you’re looking for and derive a modicum of pleasure in the process. To peruse the sources on our virtual library shelves click on each book title to see what lies hidden beneath. Right now, there are full volumes of several titles as well as excerpts of selected texts. You need not start at any particular place, but wherever your interests take you. That being said, let me start a brief description with the pile of books on the left side labeled Vox Clamantis, Speculum Meditantis, Confessio Amantis. When you click on any one of these you will be guided to a place in which you will find scanned copies of G. C. Macaulay’s editions, as well as select manuscripts of the VC and the CA. Under LINKS you will find four categories: Websites, which includes The Gower Project home page at Westminster College and its new electronic publication—Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media— as well as other items of interest. The Online Texts section includes a Portuguese CA, a collaborative translation of the Traitié, the Online Medieval and Classical Library, Project Gutenberg, and TEAMS Publications where CA editions can be found under the letter G. The Images section contains a thumbnail color collage of manuscript illustrations, a link to Luminarium, and Glasgow’s Chaucer Exhibit, which includes color plates from several Gower manuscripts. The Manuscript section contains select original manuscripts (some of which are also found under the titles described above) in addition to links leading to additional manuscript sites.
|