 John Gower shooting the world, a sphere of earth, air, and water (from an edition of his works c.1400) John Gower (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 Speculum Meditantis, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which are united by common political and moral themes. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (757x1171, 164 KB) Summary John Gower in a portrait from a book with his Vox Clamantis and Chronica Tripertita MS Hunter 59 (T.2. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (757x1171, 164 KB) Summary John Gower in a portrait from a book with his Vox Clamantis and Chronica Tripertita MS Hunter 59 (T.2. ...
Events The Bulgars under Michael III are beaten by the Serbs at Velbuzhd, and large parts of Bulgaria fall to Serbia. ...
Events December 13 - The Order of the Dragon is officially formated under King Sigismund of Hungary. ...
A poet is someone who writes poetry. ...
Langlands Dreamer: from an illuminated initial in a Piers Plowman manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. ...
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. ...
An illustration from a manuscript of Vox Clamantis, showing Gower shooting the world: I throw my darts and shoot my arrows at the world. ...
Confessio Amantis (The Lovers Confession) is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. ...
Life
Few details are known of Gower's early life. He was probably born to an affluent family from Kent (Southeast England), and may have been a landowner. It is thought that he practised law in or around London. Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ...
While in London, he became closely associated with the nobility of his day. He was apparently personally acquainted with Richard II: in the prologue of the first edition 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 side of the future Henry IV, to whom later editions of the Confessio Amantis were dedicated. Richard II (January 6, 1367 – February 14, 1400) was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan The Fair Maid of Kent. He was born in Bordeaux and became his fathers successor when his elder brother died in infancy. ...
// Birth and life before accession - relationship with Richard II - exile - return and usurpation Henry IV (April 3, 1367 – March 20, 1413) was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he was known, Henry of Bolingbroke. His father, John of Gaunt was the third and oldest...
 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. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1800x1347, 586 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: John Gower Effigy ...
ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1800x1347, 586 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: John Gower Effigy ...
Troilus and Criseyde is Geoffrey Chaucers poem in rhyme royal re-telling the tragic love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Criseyde. ...
Marble Venus of the Capitoline Venus type, Roman (British Museum) Venus was a major Roman goddess principally associated with love and beauty, the rough equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. ...
Towards the end of his life, he took up residence in rooms provided by the Priory of St Mary Overeys (now Southwark Cathedral). In 1398, while living here, he married, probably for the second time: his wife, Agnes Groundolf, was to survive him. In his last years, and possibly as early as 1400, he became blind. Southwark Cathedral Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge. ...
After his death in 1408, Gower was interred in an ostentatious tomb in the Priory church (now Southwark Cathedral), which remains today. Southwark Cathedral Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge. ...
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. An allegory (from Greek αλλος, allos, other, and αγοÏευειν, agoreuein, to speak in public) is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than (and in addition to) the literal. ...
His earliest works were probably ballades in Anglo-Norman French, which are not known to have survived. 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. The ballade was a verse form consisting of three (sometimes five) stanzas, each with the same metre, rhyme scheme and last line, with a shorter concluding stanza (an envoi). ...
The Anglo-Norman language is the name given to the variety of Norman spoken by the Anglo-Normans, the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the conquest by William of Normandy in 1066. ...
Gower's second major work, the Vox Clamantis, was written in Latin: it takes as its subject the state of England, and incorporates commentary on the Peasants' Revolt that occurred during the composition of the poem. Gower takes the side of the aristocracy, and appears to have admired the techniques Richard II used to suppress the revolt. An illustration from a manuscript of Vox Clamantis, showing Gower shooting the world: I throw my darts and shoot my arrows at the world. ...
The end of the revolt: Wat Tyler killed by Walworth while Richard II watches, and a second image of Richard addressing the crowd The Peasants Revolt, Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Great Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval Europe and is a...
His third work is the Confessio Amantis, a 30,000-line poem in English, 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. Confessio Amantis (The Lovers Confession) is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. ...
Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the...
Confession of sins is an integral part of the Christian faith and practice. ...
A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc. ...
In later years Gower wrote a number of minor works in all three languages: the Cinkante Ballades, a series of French ballades on straightforwardly romantic subjects, and several poems addressed to the new Henry IV—in return for which he was granted a pension, in the form of an annual allowance of wine. // Birth and life before accession - relationship with Richard II - exile - return and usurpation Henry IV (April 3, 1367 – March 20, 1413) was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he was known, Henry of Bolingbroke. His father, John of Gaunt was the third and oldest...
Gower's poetry has had a mixed critical reception. In the fifteenth 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. During the twentieth century he has received more recognition, notably by C.S. Lewis in The Allegory of Love. However, he has not obtained the same following or critical acceptance as other major poets of the period.
List of works Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Gower - 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)
Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ...
The original Wikisource logo. ...
An illustration from a manuscript of Vox Clamantis, showing Gower shooting the world: I throw my darts and shoot my arrows at the world. ...
Confessio Amantis (The Lovers Confession) is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. ...
References - 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.
See also Title page of the 1611 quarto edition of the play Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a play written (at least in part) by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected plays despite some questions over its authorship. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
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