John Gower, a Londoner himself, came of a good Kentish family. Chaucer
must have known him well, for he chose him as his attorney when leaving
for the Continent in 1378, and, with the dedication of _Troilus and
Criseyde_, labelled him for ever as 'moral Gower'. Gower's marriage with
Agnes Groundolf, probably a second marriage, is recorded in 1398.
Blindness came on him a few years later. His will, dated August 15,
1408, was proved on October 24, 1408, so that his death must fall
between those two points. By his own wish he was buried in St.
Saviour's, Southwark, the church of the canons of St. Mary Overy, to
whom he was a liberal benefactor.
On his tomb in St. Saviour's Church, Gower is shown with his head
resting on three great volumes, representing his principal works—the
_Speculum Meditantis_, the _Vox Clamantis_, and the _Confessio Amantis_.
The _Speculum Meditantis_, or _Mirour de l'Omme_, is a handbook of sins
and sinners, written in French.
The _Vox Clamantis_, written in Latin, covers similar ground. Opening
with a vision of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the poet passes in review
the faults of the different grades of society—clergy, nobles,
labourers, traders, lawyers—and ends with an admonition to the young
King Richard II.
In his English work, the _Confessio Amantis_, he expressly abandons the
task of setting the world to rights, and promises to change his style
henceforth. Now he will sing of Love. The machinery of the poem is
suggested by the great source of mediaeval conventions, the _Roman de la
Rose_. On a May morning the poet, a victim of love, wanders afield and
meets the Queen of Love (cp. the beginning of Chaucer's _Legend of Good
Women_). She bids him confess to her priest Genius. Genius hears the
confession, sustaining with some incongruity the triple rôle of high
priest of Love, Christian moralist, and entertainer—for it is he who
tells the stories which, woven about the frame work of the Seven Deadly
Sins, make the real matter of the poem.
The first form of the _Confessio_ was completed in 1390. It contains a
Prologue in which the suggestion for the poem is ascribed to Richard II,
and an Epilogue in his praise. In this version the Queen of Love at
parting gives Gower a message for Chaucer:
And gret wel Chaucer whan ye mete,
As mi disciple and mi poete:
For in the floures of his youthe
In sondri wise, as he wel couthe,
Of ditees and of songes glade,
The whiche he for mi sake made,
The lond fulfild is overal.
Wherof to him in special
Above alle othre I am most holde.
Forthi now, in hise daies olde,
Thow schalt him telle this message,
That he upon his latere age,
To sette an ende of alle his werk,
As he which is myn owne clerk,
Do make his testament of love,
As thou hast do thi schrifte above,
So that mi Court it mai recorde.
In the final form, completed in 1392-3, Richard's name disappears from
the Prologue; the dedication to his popular rival, Henry of Lancaster,
is made prominent; the eulogy in the Epilogue is dropped; and with it
the compliment to Chaucer. Whether this last omission is due to chance,
or to some change in the relations between the two poets, is not clear.
In his own day Gower was ranked with Chaucer. His reputation was still
high among the Elizabethans; and he has the distinction of appearing as
Chorus in a Shakespearian play—_Pericles_—of which his story of
_Apollonius of Tyre_, in Bk. viii of the _Confessio_, was the immediate
source.
A selection gives a very favourable impression of his work. He has a
perfect command of the octosyllabic couplet; an easy style, well suited
to narrative; and a classic simplicity of expression for which the work
of his predecessors in Middle English leaves us unprepared. Throughout
the whole of the _Confessio Amantis_, more than 30,000 lines, the level
of workmanship is remarkable, and almost every page shows some graceful
and poetical verses.
Yet the poem as a whole suffers from the fault that Gower tried to
avoid:
It dulleth ofte a mannes wit
To him that schal it aldai rede.
One defect, obvious to a modern reader, would hardly be noticed by his
contemporaries: he often incorporates in his poetry matter proper only
to an encyclopaedia, such as the discourse on the religions of the world
in Bk. v, or that on Philosophy in Bk. vii. Another is more radical: for
all his wide reading, his leading ideas lack originality. It is hardly a
travesty to say that the teaching of his works amounts to this: 'In the
moral world, avoid the Seven Deadly Sins in the five sub-classifications
of each; in the political world keep your degree without presuming'.
Such a negative and conventional message cannot sustain the fabric of
three long poems. Their polished and facile moralizing becomes almost
exasperating if it be remembered that the poet wrote when a whole system
of society was falling, and falling noisily, about him. Modern taste
rejects Gower the moralist and political writer, and his claim to
present as apart from historical value rests on the delightful single
stories which served as embroidery to his serious themes.
The extracts are taken from the admirable edition by G. C. Macaulay:
'The Works of John Gower', 4 vols., Oxford 1899-1902.