Biography John Gower
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Poet Biography
John Gower, poet and friend of Chaucer, was born into a prominent Yorkshire family which held properties in Kent, Yorkshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Gower's coat of arms is identical to those of Sir Robert Gower of Brabourne. Nothing is known of his education, though it has been speculated that he was trained in law. Gower himself held properties in Suffolk and Kent, where he seems to have resided until taking up residence in the priory of St. Mary Overies in Southwark, London, around Gower's first work was Mirour de l'Omme (i.e. Mirror of Man) (wr. ), an allegorical poem in French meditating on the fall of man and the effect of sin on the world. Gower later latinized the title to Speculum Hominis, and later changed it to Speculum Meditantis to fit with the titles of his later works. Around , Gower began work on Vox Clamantis (i.e. The Voice of One Crying), an essay in Latin elegiac verse. Like the Speculum Meditantis, it too treats of sinfulness, and criticizes the corruption of the society. It also provides a contemporary view of the Peasants' Revolt of Gower's moral and philosophical wriJohn Gower (?)
John Gower was Chaucer's friend and fellow poet. He wrote his early works in Latin (Vox Clamantis) and French (Mirour de l'omme, Cinquante balades) and turned to English, he says (in the Prologue to the Confessio Amantis), at the command of Richard II, who was worried that there were so few books in that language.
Like Chaucer, Gower gained an international reputation; in the early fifteenth century, his Confessio Amantis was translated into Portuguese prose (by an Englishman, Robert Payn) and then into Spanish by Juan de Cuenca. The Spanish has long been known, but the Portuguese version was discovered fairly recently, in the s, in the Biblioteca Real de Palacio. Gower's reputation remained high in the following centuries; Shakespeare drew on his works, and Gower himself appears in the role of Chorus in Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre. (Gower's version, Apollonius of Tyre, is in Confessio Amantis, Book VIII, ).
Gower's Confessio Amantis (The Lover's Confession) is cast in the form of a dream vision, with Gower himself in the role of the Lover. Venus assigns him a confessor, her priest Genius, who is to question him on the
John Gower, Vox Clamantis. With the kind permission of
Glasgow University Library, Dept. of Special Collections.
John Gower, poet and friend of Chaucer, was born around , into a prominent Yorkshire family which held properties in Kent, Yorkshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Gower's coat of arms is identical to those of Sir Robert Gower of Brabourne. Nothing is known of his education, though it has been speculated that he was trained in law. Gower himself held properties in Suffolk and Kent, where he seems to have resided until taking up residence in the priory of St. Mary Overies in Southwark, London, around | John Gower, Vox Clamantis. With the kind permission of Glasgow University Library, Dept. of Special Collections. Site copyright © Anniina Jokinen. All Rights Reserved. Created by Anniina Jokinen on October 16, Last updated on January 24, |
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