John Gower

John Gower , born towards 1330 and dead in October 1408, was a Poète English contemporary and personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer.

John Gower is especially known for three major works, the Mirour of Omme , the Vox Clamantis and the Confessio Amantis , three long poems written respectively in Anglo-Norman, Latin and English, which turns around political and moral topics common. It is regarded as the first English poet to have written in this language.

Biography

One knows few things on the beginning of the life of Gower. It was probably of a family of the Kent and it may be that he was landowner. It is thought that he exerted around the right to London or in the neighborhoods.

In London, it became closely related to the nobility of its time. There is appearance which it knew personally Richard II because, in the prolog of the first edition of the Confessio Amantis , he tells how the king, having met it by chance on the the Thames (probably around 1385), invited it aboard royal barge and that their conversation had as consequence an order for the work which was going to become the Confessio Amantis . Thereafter, it adopted the future Henri IV to which the posterior editions of the Confessio Amantis are dedicated.

Its friendship with Chaucer is also well attested. When this last was sent on mission diplomatic in Italy in 1378, Gower is one of those with which Chaucer signed a procuration for its business in England. The two poets also mutually complimented themselves in theirs towards: Chaucer partly dedicated its Troilus and Criseyde to “Gower the moral one” which returned the favor to him while placing a praise of Chaucer in the mouth of Venus at the end of its Confessio Amantis .

Towards the end of its life, it was withdrawn in the residence provided by the priory of Saint Mary Overeys (today the cathedral of Southwark) where it married, in 1398, probably for the second time: his wife, Agnes Groundolf, were to survive to him. In its last years, perhaps as of 1400, it became blind. With its death in 1408, it was buried in a sumptuous tomb which remains visible in the church of the priory where it resided.

Work

Although Gower was defined as “moral” poet since Chaucer allotted this epithet to him, its worms are very with turn religious, political, historical and moral. Its major mode of expression is the Allégorie, although he prefers the prosaic style impresses of force and clearness of the storyteller to the high abstractions.

Its first works were probably Ballade S in Anglo-Norman, which did not survive. The first work to have survived was written in this same language: it is about the Mirour of Omme , also known under the Latin title of Speculum Meditantis (“Mirror of the Thinker”), poem of almost 30 000 worms containing an explanation compacts on the religion and morality.

The second major work of Gower, Vox Clamantis (“Voice of the Prophet”), written in Latin, takes for subject the situation of England and includes/understands a comment on the great country revolt of 1381 which occurred during the drafting of the poem. Gower supports the aristocracy there and seems to have impressed by the way in which Richard II began there to repress the revolt.

Its third work is the Confessio Amantis (“Confession of In love”), a poem of 30 000 worms in Middle English, who resorts to the structure of a Christian Confession (presented allegorically as a confession of the sins against the love) inside a history on which come to intercalate a multitude of various tales. As in its preceding works, morality is the subject of this confession, even when the stories tend to describe a rather immoral behavior.

In its last years, Gower wrote a certain number of minor works in each of the three languages: the Cinkante Ballades , series of ballades as an Anglo-Norman for a public the noble ones and rich person on romantic subjects and several poems addressed to new the Henri IV which will be worth to him a pension in the form of an annual gift of wine.

The critical reception of the poetry of Gower was mitigated. The Moyen-âge it was generally considered, of par with Chaucer, like the father of English poetry: its epitaph thus carries the inscription “ Anglorum Poeta celeberrimus ”. Its reputation nevertheless decreased during time, mainly because its work was perceived like too didactic or tedious. It received more recognition with same if it did not obtain the same assistantship or the same critical acceptance as of other principal poets of the same period.

Work

the reign of Edouard Ier , ED. critical and commented of Jean-Claude Thiolier, Creteil, CELIMA, 1989
Mirour of Omme , East Lansing, Colleagues close, 1992 ISBN 0937191175
complete Works (French old-English means-Latin) , ED. G.C. Macaulay, Grosse points, Scholarly near, 1968

Reference

R. - Elfreda Fowler, a French source of the poems of Gower , Mâcon, Protat Brothers, 1905

Random links: