John Gower (/ˈɡaʊ.ər/; 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.[1]
Life
Few details are known of Gower's
early life. He was probably born into a family which held properties in Kent
and Suffolk.[1]:299 Stanley and Smith use a linguistic
argument to
conclude that "Gower’s formative years were spent partly in Kent and
partly in Suffolk".[2] 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.[3]:111 Macaulay[4]:xxx-xxxiii and other critics have observed
that he must have spent considerable time reading the Bible, Ovid, Secretum
Secretorum, Petrus Riga, Speculum
Speculationum, Valerius Maximus, John of Salisbury, and others.[5]
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.[6] Later in life his allegiance switched
to the future Henry
IV, to whom later
editions of the Confessio Amantis were dedicated.[7] 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.[8]:198 He may have practised law in or around London.[9] George Campbell Macaulay lists several real
estate transactions
to which Gower was a party.[4]:xi Macaulay's Introduction to the French Works
suggests that Gower may have been a dealer in wool.[10]:xiii 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.[11]:xi From 1382 until death he received forty pounds
per annum from selling Feltwell in Norfolk and Moulton in Suffolk.[3]:117 In 1399 Henry IV granted him a pension, in the
form of an annual allowance of two pipes (= 1 tun =
Gower's friendship with Chaucer is also well documented. 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.[4]:xv 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).[12] 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.[13] Twentieth century sources have more
innocent reasons for the deletion.[14]:xxvi-xxviii[15]
At some point during the middle
1370s, he took up residence in rooms provided by the Priory of St Mary Overie
(now Southwark
Cathedral).[16]:59 In 1398, while living here, he married,[4]:xvii[17] probably for the second time: his
wife, Agnes Groundolf, who survived him. In his last years, and possibly as
early as 1400, he became blind.[1]:300
After his death in 1408, Gower was
interred in an ostentatious tomb in the Priory church (now Southwark
Cathedral), which
remains today.
Macaulay provides much information
and speculation about Gower. Some of his conclusions are inferences drawn from
the trilingual writings of Gower. Where possible he draws upon legal records
and other biographers.[4]
Works
Gower's verse is by turns religious,
political, historical, and moral—though he has been narrowly defined as
"moral Gower" ever since Chaucer graced him with the epithet.[18]:line 1856 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."[19]
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.[4]:xxxiv-xl Gower takes the side of the
aristocracy but the actions of Richard II are described by "the captain in
vain endeavoured to direct the ship’s course".[4]:xxxixSubsequent books decry the sins of various
classes of the social order: priests, friars, knights, peasants, merchants,
lawyers. The last two books give advice to King Richard II and express the
poet’s love for England.[4]:xxx-lvii As Gower admits,[20] much of Vox Clamantis was
borrowed from other authors. Macaulay
refers to this as "schoolboy plagiarism"[4]:xxxii Peter classifies Mirour and Vox
as "complaint literature" in the vein of Langland.[21]
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.:I.203-288 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."[22]
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 [23] (ca 1540) [16]: Fisher translation 136 states "that the three works
were intended to present a systematic discourse upon the nature of man and
society."
They provide as organized and
unified a view as we have of the social ideals on England upon the eve of the
Renaissance. This view may be subsumed under the three broad headings:
individual VIRTUE, legal JUSTICE, and the administrative responsibility of the
KING. The works progress from the description of the origins of sin and the
nature of the vices and virtues at the beginning of the Mirour de l'omme,
through consideration of social law and order in the discussion of the three
estates in the Mirour and Vox Clamatis, to a final synthesis of
royal responsibiity of Empedoclean love in the Confessio Amantis.[16]: 136
In later years Gower published a
number of minor works in all three languages:
- the Cinkante Ballades, a series of French
ballades on romantic subjects. Yeager (2011) argues that these sonnets
were composed throughout Gower’s lifetime.[24]
- 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"[25]:106 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."[16]:133
- 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."[26]
Critics have speculated on which
late work triggered the royal wine allowance mentioned in the Life section.
Candidates are Cronica tripertita,[8][27]:26 In Praise of Peace,[28]:85 O Recolende[29] or an illustrated presentation copy
of Confessio with dedication to Henry IV.[30] According to Meyer-Lee "no
known evidence relates the collar or grant [of wine] to his literary
activity."[31]
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.[32]:ix In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, his
reputation declined, largely on account of a perceived didacticism and
dullness; e.g. the American poet and critic James
Russell Lowell
claimed Gower "positively raised tediousness to the precision of
science".[33]:329 After publication of Macaulay's edition (1901)
of the complete works,[32] he has received more recognition,
notably by C. S.
Lewis (1936),[34] Wickert (1953),[35] Fisher (1964),[16] Yeager (1990) [36] and Peck (2006). [37] However, he has not obtained the
same following or critical acceptance as Geoffrey Chaucer.
·
Gower's 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(lines 26485-26496) 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(line
V.563-564). This predicts trouble in a short time.[35]:18-19 Gower's warnings and call for reform were
ignored both before and after the events of 1381.[35]:51-52
·
Chaucer influence
Chaucer used octosyllabic lines in The House of Fame but eschewed iambic rhythm. He "left it to Gower to invent
the iambic tetrameter, and to later centuries of poets to
solve the problems of its potential monotony; he himself merely polished the
traditional Middle English short line."[38]:85
Fisher [16]:207 concludes that they were living near each
other in the period 1376 to 1386. They influenced each other in several
ways:
- They imported Italian models and learned "to count beats in
such a way as to produce a regular number of syllables."[38]: 92 This
led via Mirour to the iambic tetrameter of Confessio and
Chaucer's pentameter.
- After 1376 both poets turned from love poetry to more serious
topics. For Gower this was the "moralistic social complaint in the Mirour
d l'omme and Vox Clamatis, while Chaucer wrestled more
painfully in the House of Fame and Parliament of Fowls with the relation between the style and substance of courtly
poetry and social satire."[16]:208
- Gower "took the risk of composing in English only after
Chaucer had achieved success and fame with Troilus and Criseyde."[38]: 92
- The most of the individuals in the General Prologue are
members of classes criticized in Mirour and Vox Clamatis.
Chaucer has omitted the higher ranks of the secular and clerical
hierarchies. The language and the introduction of satire are the invention
of Chaucer.[16]: 251ff
- Gower is criticized in the Introduction to The Man of Law's Tale. Some
commentators have interpreted these remarks to indicate a breach between
the two poets. Fisher interprets them and along with the details of the
Tale as a friendly competition between two poets.[16]:292
Manuscripts
Sebastian Sobecki's discovery of the
early provenance of the trilingual Trentham manuscript reveals Gower as a poet
who was not afraid to give Henry IV stern political advice.[39] Sobecki has also claimed to have
identified Gower's autograph hand in two manuscripts.[40]
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)
See also
1. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, a play
co-written by Shakespeare, based on a story from Confessio Amantis and featuring Gower as the Chorus
2. Characters named Gower appear in Henry IV Part II and Henry V but there is no reason to associate these characters
with the poet.
3. John Gower is the hero of A Burnable Book and The
Invention of Fire, first two of a 14th century thriller series by Bruce Holsinger.[41]
Notes
· "Gower, John" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885-1900.
· Samuels, Michael; J.J.Smith (1988). "The
Language of Gower". The English of Chaucer and his contemporaries.
Aberdeen University Press. ISBN 978-0080364032.
·
Henry
Southern, Esq M.A.; Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Esq, eds. (1828). The Retrospective
Review, and Historical and Antiquarian Magazine, Volumes 1-2. Baldwin, Cradock,
and Joy.
·
G.C.
Macaulay (ed.). "Introduction, Life of
Gower" (PDF). The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol 4 The Latin
Works. p. vii-xxx.
·
George L.
Hamilton (1912). "Some Sources of the Seventh Book of Gower's
"Confessio Amantis"". Modern Philology. University of Chicago
Press. 9 (Vol. 9, No. 3 (January 1912)): 323-346. doi:10.1086/386864. JSTOR 432439.
·
Peck
(ed.). "Confessio
Amantis". left note line 22
·
Grétar
Rúnar Skúlason (2012). "John Gower, Richard
II and Henry IV: A Poet and his Kings" (PDF).
·
David
Richard Carlson. John Gower, Poetry and Propaganda in Fourteenth-century
England. pp. 198-199.
·
Conrad
van Dijk (2013). John Gower and the Limits of the Law (Publications of the John
Gower Society). D.S.Brewer. ISBN 978-1843843504.
·
G.C.
Macaulay (ed.). "Introduction" (PDF). The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol 1 The
French Works. p. xiii.
·
Reinhold
Pauli, ed. (1857). "Life of John
Gower". Confessio Amantis of John
Gower, Vol 1. Bell and Daldy.
·
Thomas
Usk; John Leyerle; Gary Wayne Shawver (2002). Testament of Love. University of Toronto Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780802054715.
·
Thomas
Tyrwhitt, ed. (1822). "Introductory
Discourse to the Canterbury Tales". The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. W. Pickering and R. and S. Prowett.
p. 126 note 15. ISBN 978-0848226244.
·
Macaulay, G.C. (1900). "Introduction". The English Works of John Gower Vol I. Early
English Text Society.
·
Geoffrey
Chaucer (2008). Larry Dean Benson (ed.). The Riverside Chaucer. p. 856. ISBN 9780199552092.
·
John H. Fisher
(1964). John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer. New York
University Press. ISBN 978-0814701492.
·
Register
of William of Wykman ii. f.299b. not verified
·
Geoffrey
Chauucer (1380). Troilus and Criseyde.
·
Robert F.
Yeager (2006). "Gower's French
Audience: The Mirour de l'Omme". The Chaucer Review (Volume 41, Number 2).
·
Vox Clamatis Prologos Libri
Secunti
·
Sears
Jayne (1958). "Reviewed Work: Complaint and Satire in Early English
Literature by John Peter". Modern Philology. University of Chicago Press. 55
(Vol. 55): 200-202. doi:10.1086/389217. JSTOR 434965.
·
Grey, Douglas. "John
Gower." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford UP, 2004.
·
John
Leland (1540). Commentarii de Scriptoribus Brittannicis (in Latin).
·
R. F.
Yeager (Editor) (2011). "Cinkante Balades:
Introduction". The
French Balades. Medieval Institute Publications.
·
Masayoshi
Itô (1976). John Gower, the medieval
poet. Shinozaki Shorin.
·
John
Gower (2005). "Introduction". In R. F. Yeager; Michael Livingston (eds.). The
Minor Latin Works with In Praise of Peace. Medieval Institute Publications.
·
John
Hines; Nathalie Cohen; Simon Roffey (2004). "Iohannes Gower, armiger,
poeta: records and memorials of his life and death". In Siân Echard (ed.).
A companion to Gower. ISBN 978-1843842446.
·
John H.
Fisher (1998). "A Language Policy for Lancastrian England". In Daniel
Pinti (ed.). Writing After Chaucer: Essential Readings in Chaucer and the
Fifteenth Century. ISBN 978-0815326519.
·
Henry was crowned 13 October
1399. His grant to Gower was doubtless in recognition of the political support
reflected in the Chronica Tripertita
and other Latin poems. The Epistola
brevi (aka O Recolende)
(Macaulay, 4:345) would appear to contain an acknowledgement of the grant
(lines 19-21). John H
Fisher (1959). "Calendar of Documents relating to the life of John Gower
the Poet". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology (58#1): 1-23.
·
Clayton
J. Drees (2001). The Late Medieval Age of
Crisis and Renewal, 1300-1500. p. 198. ISBN 978-0313305887.
·
Robert J.
Meyer-Lee (2007). Poets and Power from Chaucer to Wyatt. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 9780521863551.
·
Macaulay, G.C. (1900). "Introduction". The English Works of John Gower Vol I. Early English
Text Society.
·
James
Russell Lowell (1890). The Writings of James
Russell Lowell: Literary essays. p. 329. ISBN 978-1248665008.
·
C.S.
Lewis (1936). The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. ISBN 978-1107659438.
·
Wickert,
Maria (2016). Studies in John Gower. Translated by Robert J. Meindl. Temp,
Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
·
Robert F.
Yeager (1990). John Gower's Poetic: The Search for a New Arion. Boydell &
Brewer.
·
Russell
A. Peck (2006). "Confessio Amantis, Volume
1: Introduction". Robbins
Library Digital Projects.
·
Martin J.
Duffel (2011). A New History of English
Metre. Legenda. ISBN 978-1907975134.
·
Sobecki
Sebastian (2015). "Ecce patet tensus: The Trentham Manuscript, In Praise
of Peace, and John Gower's Autograph Hand". Speculum. 90 (4): 925-59.
doi:10.1017/S0038713415002316.
·
Sobecki. "Ecce patet tensus: The Trentham Manuscript, In Praise of Peace, and John Gower's
Autograph Hand."
· Sarah Dunant (15 February 2014). "To Kill a
King". New York Times.
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. ISBN 978-0814701492
·
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 ISBN 978-1843842446
·
Sobecki, Sebastian (2015). "Ecce patet tensus:
The Trentham Manuscript, In Praise of Peace, and John Gower's Autograph
Hand". Speculum. 90 (4): 925-959.
doi:10.1017/S0038713415002316.
·
Urban, M. (ed.)
(2009) John Gower, Manuscripts, Readers, Contexts, Turnhout: Brepols ISBN 978-2-503-52470-2
·
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
External links
· The
International John Gower Society
· John Gower Bibliography Online
· MS 1083/29
Confessio amantis at OPenn
·
Works by John Gower at Project Gutenberg
·
Works by or about John Gower at Internet Archive
·
Luminarium: John Gower Life, works,
essays
·
Excerpt from Confessio Amantis - Harvard Chaucer Pages
·
Russell Peck (ed.). "Middle English Texts Series Texts Online". Robbins Library
Digital Projects (University of Rochester). texts of Gower and his contemporaries
·
G.C.Macaulay, ed. (1899). Vol 1:The Complete Works of John Gower, The French Works.
·
G.C.Macaulay, ed. (1899). Vol 2:The complete works of John Gower. first half of Confessio Amantis(to V.1970)
·
G.C.Macaulay, ed. (1899). Vol 3:The complete works of John Gower. second half of Confessio Amantis (from V.1970)
·
G.C. Macaulay, ed. (1899). Vol 4: The Complete Works of John Gower,The Latin
Works (PDF).
·
John Gower at the Catholic
Encyclopedia
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