John Gower: Difference between revisions

For American politician, see John Gower (politician).

John Gower shooting the world, a sphere of earth, air, and water (from a manuscript of his works ca. 1400)

John Gower (/ˈɡaʊər/; c. 1330 – October 1408) was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland 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.

Life

Few details are known of Gower's early life. He was probably born into a family which held properties in Kent and Suffolk. 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 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.

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. Macaulay lists several real estate transactions to which Gower was a party. 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 Felwell in Norfolk and Multon in Suffolk. In 1399 Henry IV granted him a pension, in the form of an annual allowance of two pipes (= 1 tun = 240 gallons) of Gascony wine. Carlson estimates the value of the two pipes as 3 to 4 pounds wholesale or 8 pounds retail.

The tomb of John Gower in Southwark Cathedral. For more information click on the picture

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. 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 reason for the deletion.

At some point during the early 1370s, he took up residence in rooms provided by the Priory of St Mary Overie (now Southwark Cathedral). In 1398, while living here, he married, 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.

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.

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. 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. {rp|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”.Subsequent 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. . As Gower admits, 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."

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 the sonnets of Cinkante Balades were composed throughout Gower’s lifetime.
• 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” John 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.”

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. Over the years, 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”. After publication of Macaulay 's edition(1901) of the complete works, he has received more recognition, notably by C. S. Lewis (1936), Fisher (1964),Yeager (1990) and Peck (2006). However, he has not obtained the same following or critical acceptance as other major poets of the period.

Gower's reputation has also suffered from having been viewed as a servile follower of the Lancastrian regime, but 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. Sobecki has also identified Gower's autograph hand in two manuscripts.

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 (French, 1397)
• Cinkante Balades (French, 1399–1400)
• Cronica Tripertita (Latin, c.1400)
• In praise of peace (English, c.1400)

See also

• Pericles, Prince of Tyre, a play co-written by Shakespeare, based on Gower's work and featuring Gower as the Chorus
• Henry IV Part II includes Gower as a messenger
• In Henry V, Gower is the ideal English soldier

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
• Watt, Diane (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
• The Gower Project http://www.gowerproject.org/
• Works by John Gower at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Gower at the Internet Archive
• Luminarium: John Gower Life, works, essays
• Excerpt from Confessio Amantis – Harvard Chaucer Pages
• Volume 1 of the Confessio Amantis (containing the Prologue, Book 1, and Book 8); Volumes 2 (Books 2–4) and 3 (Books 5–7) can be accessed at the Complete Catalogue of TEAMS texts
• 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