John Gower

[[File:John Gower world Vox Clamantis.jpg|thumb|John Gower shooting the world, a sphere of earth, air, and water (from a manuscript of his works ca. 1400).

The text reads:

Ad mundum mitto mea iacula dumque sagitto

At ubi iustus erit nulla sagitta ferit

Sed male viventes hos vulnero transgredientes

Conscius ergo sibi se speculetur ibi (As I shoot I send at the world these my bolts And where the just shall be no arrow may hit But those living wicked lives, the transgressors I aim to harm Thus may in this work those conscious amongst you observe themselves as they truly are)]]

John Gower (; c. 1330 – October 1408) was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and the Pearl Poet, and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works—the Mirour de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis—three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes. Stanley and Smith use a linguistic argument to conclude that "Gower’s formative years were spent partly in Kent and partly in Suffolk". Southern and Nicolas conclude that the Gower family of Kent and Suffolk cannot be related to the Yorkshire Gowers because their coats of arms are drastically different. Macaulay

He once met Richard II. In the prologue of the first recension of the Confessio Amantis, he tells how the king, chancing to meet him on the Thames (probably circa 1385), invited him aboard the royal barge, and that their conversation then resulted in a commission for the work that would become the Confessio Amantis. Later in life his allegiance switched to the future Henry IV, to whom later editions of the Confessio Amantis were dedicated. Much of this is based on circumstantial rather than documentary evidence, and the history of revisions of the Confessio Amantis, including the different dedications, is yet to be fully understood.

The source of Gower's income remains a mystery. He may have practised law in or around London. George Campbell Macaulay lists several real estate transactions to which Gower was a party. This is based on remarks from Mirour d l'Omme line 25360ff. From 1365 he received ten pounds' rent for the manor of Wygebergh in Essex. From 1382 until death he received forty pounds per annum from selling Feltwell in Norfolk and Moulton in Suffolk. When Chaucer was sent as a diplomat to Italy in 1378, Gower was one of the men to whom he gave power of attorney over his affairs in England. The two poets also paid one another compliments in their verse: Chaucer dedicated his Troilus and Criseyde in part to "moral Gower", and Gower reciprocated by placing a speech in praise of Chaucer in the mouth of Venus at the end of the Confessio Amantis (first recension VIII.2950-70). The Introduction to the Man of Law's Tale (lines 77–89) contains an apparent reference to Gower's tales of Canacee and Tyro Appolonius. Tyrwhitt (1822) believed that this offended Gower and led to the removal of Venus’ praise of Chaucer. Twentieth-century sources have more innocent reasons for the deletion.

At some point during the middle 1370s, he took up residence in rooms provided by the Priory of St Mary Overie (now Southwark Cathedral). probably for the second time: his wife was Agnes Groundolf, who survived him. In his last years, and possibly as early as 1400, he became blind. His primary mode is allegory, although he shies away from sustained abstractions in favour of the plain style of the raconteur.

His earliest works were probably ballades in Anglo-Norman French, some of which may have later been included in his work the Cinkante Ballades. The first work which has survived is in the same language, however: it is the Speculum Meditantis, also known by the French title Mirour de l'Omme, a poem of just under 30,000 lines, containing a dense exposition of religion and morality. According to Yeager "Gower's first intent to write a poem for the instructional betterment of king and court, at a moment when he had reason to believe advice about social reform might influence changes predictably to take place in an expanded jurisdiction, when the French and English peoples were consolidated under a single crown."

Gower's second major work, the Vox Clamantis, was written in Latin.

The first book has an allegorical account of the Peasants' Revolt which begins as an allegory, becomes quite specific and ends with an allusion to William Walworth’s suppression of the rebels. much of Vox Clamantis was borrowed from other authors. Macaulay refers to this as "schoolboy plagiarism"

His third work is the Confessio Amantis, a 30,000-line poem in octosyllabic English couplets, which makes use of the structure of a Christian confession (presented allegorically as a confession of sins against Love) as a narrative frame within which a multitude of individual tales are told. Like his previous works, the theme is very much morality, even where the stories themselves have a tendency to describe rather immoral behaviour. One scholar asserts that Confessio Amantis "almost exclusively" made Gower's "poetic reputation."

Fisher views the three major works as "one continuous work" with In Praise of Peace as a capstone. There is "movement from the courtly tone of the Cinkante Balades to the moral and philosophical tone of the Traitie." Leland (ca 1540)

the English poem In Praise of Peace "is a political poem in which Gower, as a loyal subject of Henry IV, approves his coronation, admires him as the saviour of England, dilates on the evil of war and the blessing of peace, and finally begs him to display clemency and seek domestic peace" Fisher argued that it was "Gower's last important poem. It sums up the final twenty years of both his literary career and his literary achievement."
short Latin works on various subjects with several poems addressed to the new Henry IV. According to Yeager (2005) "his final metered thoughts were in Latin, the language that Gower, like most of his contemporaries, associated with timeless authority."

Critics have speculated on which late work triggered the royal wine allowance mentioned in the Life section. Candidates are Cronica tripertita, In Praise of Peace, O Recolende or an illustrated presentation copy of Confessio with dedication to Henry IV. According to Meyer-Lee "no known evidence relates the collar or grant [of wine] to his literary activity."

Prediction of the Peasants' Revolt

When Wickert was attempting to date Vox Clamantis Books Two to Seven, she found two passages which predict the revolt. One is Mirour which uses the metaphor of the stinging nettle to predict the impending catastrophe. The second is the final couplet of Vox Clamantis Book Five Chapter 10. This predicts trouble in a short time.

Fisher Sobecki also claims to have identified Gower's autograph hand in two manuscripts.

Critical reception

Gower's poetry has had a mixed critical reception. In the 16th century, he was generally regarded alongside Chaucer as the father of English poetry. In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, his reputation declined, largely on account of a perceived didacticism and dullness, along with the perception that Gower was a servile follower of the Lancastrian regime. Thus the American poet and critic James Russell Lowell claimed Gower "positively raised tediousness to the precision of science". After publication of Macaulay's edition (1901) of the complete works, Wickert (1953), Fisher (1964), and Peck (2006). However, he has not obtained the same following or critical acceptance as Geoffrey Chaucer.

List of works

Mirour de l'Omme, or Speculum Hominis, or Speculum Meditantis (French, c.1376–1379)
Vox Clamantis (Latin, c.1377–1381)
Confessio Amantis (English, c.1386–1393)
Traité pour Essampler les Amants Marietz (French, 1397)
Cinkante Balades (French, 1399–1400)
Cronica Tripertita (Latin, c.1400)
In Praise of Peace (English, c.1400)

Notes

References

Arner, Lynn (2013) "Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising: Poetry and the Problem of the Populace after 1381". Penn State UP.
Fisher, John H. (1964) John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer. New York University Press.
Macaulay, G. C. (1908) "John Gower," in Ward, A. W., and Waller, A. R., eds. The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. II. The End of the Middle Ages, chapter VI. Cambridge University Press
Echard, Siân (ed.) (2004) A Companion to Gower. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer
Urban, M. (ed.) (2009) John Gower, Manuscripts, Readers, Contexts, Turnhout: Brepols
Diane Watt (2003) Amoral Gower. University of Minnesota Press
Yeager, R. F. (ed.) (2007) On John Gower: Essays at the Millennium. (Studies in Medieval Culture, XLVI) Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, pp. x, 241

Prediction of the Peasants' Revolt

Critical reception

List of works

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links