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While we are reading only Gower's English work, he wrote major poems in three languages: English, French, and Latin. His tomb shows his head resting on these three books, the Vox Clamantis, the Speculum Meditantis (the Latin title for his French poem, the Mirour de l'Omme), and the Confessio Amantis. You can pay a virtual visit to Gower's tomb by going to the website of Southwark Cathedral in London: this cathedral was, in Gower's day, the Priory of St. Mary Overeys, and Gower had a close association with it. The tomb has been moved from its original site in the church, and the repainting is modern, based on earlier descriptions.
On the right is a picture of Gower's tomb as it appears today, while below is an engraving of the tomb as it appeared in 1809
Gower's Confessio Amantis survives in almost 50 manuscripts,
many of them of extremely high quality. To see some excellent
images of these, follow the links below, which will take you directly
to some pictures of individual pages. These come from the Digital Scriptorium
project at Columbia University; you might like to visit
their home page and see what other manuscripts are being made
digitally available. Note that these are large files which will
take a while to download if you are using a slow connection.
the statue miniature from MS Plimpton
265
the end of Book II and the opening
of Book III from MS Plimpton 265
a page with a later reader's
notes from MS Plimpton 265
In the decades immediately following his death, Gower was routinely
mentioned alongside other Middle English poets, most notably Chaucer
and John Lydgate, as a founder of the English poetic tradition.
This, for example, is from The Goldyn Targe, lines 253-270,
by Scottish poet William Dunbar (c. 1460 - c. 1520):
O reuerend Chaucere, rose of rethoris all,
As in oure tong ane flour imperiall,
That raise in Britane ewir, quho redis rycht,
Thou beris of makaris the tryumph riall;
Thy fresch anamalit termes celicall
This mater coud illumynit haue full brycht:
Was thou noucht of oure Inglisch all the lycht,
Surmounting ewiry tong terrestriall,
Alls fer as Mayes morow dois mydnycht?O morall Gower, and Ludgate laureate,
Your sugurit lippis and tongis aureate,
Bene to oure eris cause of grete delyte;
Your angel mouthis most mellifluate
Our rude langage has clere illumynate,
And faire our-gilt oure speche, that imperfyte
Stude, or your goldyn pennis schupe to wryte;
This Ile before was bare, and desolate
Off rethorike, or lusty fresch endyte.
These three still appear together in this 1614 poem by Thomas Freeman:
Pitty ô pitty, death had power
Ouer Chaucer, Lidgate, Gower:
They that equal'd all the Sages
Of these, their owne, of former Ages,
And did their learned Lights aduance
In times of darkest ignorance...
To the right is a late 18th-century portrait of Gower,
based on his tomb effigy. It may owe its existence as much to
a growing antiquarian interest in old monuments as to any sense
of Gower the poet, however, for Gower had fallen out of favour.
The last full printing of his work was in 1554, and he didn't
appear again in print until 1810, when most of the Confessio
formed part of the series of the works of English poets published
by Alexander Chalmers. But by that time, he was clearly playing
second fiddle to Chaucer (while poor Lydgate had disappeared even
more completely...): below is the title page of an 1810
collection of extracts from Gower and Chaucer:
By this point Gower was relying on a combination of antiquarian
interest and snob-appeal; it happened that the noble family of
Gower believed themselves (erroneously) to be descended from John
Gower the poet, and Todd dedicates his Illustrations to
George Granville Leveson Gower, Marquis of Stafford. A few years
later, in 1818, George Granville Leveson-Gower, Earl Gower and
later 2nd Duke of Sutherland, edited a manuscript in the family's
possession, the Trentham Manuscript of Gower's French Balades,
for the aristocratic Roxburghe Club: the two illustrations below
show the reproduction of ownership signatures which suggest that
the book belonged to Henry VII and recording the transmission
of the manuscript to the Gower family in 1656, and the title page
of the work; the latter, you will notice, features the names of
both Gower the poet and Gower the earl.
By mid-century more of Gower's work had appeared: below
are title pages from the 1850 edition of the Vox Clamantis
for the Roxburghe Club, and the 1857 edition of the Confessio
by Reinhold Pauli:
Pauli's edition (right) was a beautiful book, but its text was
suspect and its design, while visually appealing, was a mixture
of styles, and not particularly readable. The woodcut initials
and decorations are based on 15th- and 16th-century designs, while
the main font is an 18th-century style-- one that was often used,
by the Press that printed this edition, for its "gift book" offerings.
The Balades were re-edited in 1886; the Confessio
was modernized by Henry Morley under the title Tales of the
Seven Deadly Sins in 1889 (below).
In the selection above from Morley's popularization, you can
see that the Latin frame has been removed; notice as well the
addition of stress marks, and the use of section titles and display
script.
A rigorous scholarly edition of the whole of Gower's poetic output
had to wait until G.C. Macaulay's 4-volume edition for Oxford
(1899-1902), and his remains the only complete scholarly edition today.
The electronic version of the Confessio in the Online
Medieval and Classical Library is based on Macaulay's
text. The excerpts in your course package add to this my own translations
of the Latin prose and verse. Below is my transcription of the "Ricardian" version of the opening in the Prologue;
it is taken from MS Bodley 902. The first 23 lines are the same
in both versions, but then the Ricardian version inserts the story
of Richard's having requested the poem from Gower. The two versions
converge again after line 92 of the version in your course package.
The transcription has been lightly punctuated according to
modern conventions (there's almost no punctuation in most Middle
English manuscripts), and I have also separated words which were
run together in the manuscript: so for example, "a wyse"
appears in the manuscript as "awyse." Notice that this
manuscript uses thorns for "th"; the "3" is
my attempt to render a yogh, a letter which can be used for "gh"
or "y."
Of hem þat writen vs tofore
The bokes duelle, and we þer fore
Be tawht of þat was writ þo:
Ffor þi gode is þat we also
In oure tyme among vs here
Do write of new som matere,
Ensampled of þes olde wise
So þat it my3t in suche a wyse,
Whanne we ben ded and elswhere,
Be leue to þe worldes ere
In tyme comend after þis.
Bot for men sein– and soþ it is–
That who þat alle of wisdom writ
It dulleþ ofte a mannes wit
To hym þat schal alday rede,
Ffor þilke cause, if þat 3e rede,
I wolde go þe mydel weye
And write a boke be twene þe twey,
Somwhate of luste, somwhat of lore,
That of þe las or of þe more
Som man may like of þat I write.
And fore þat fewe men endite
In owre Englische I þenke make
A boke for kyng Richardes sake [this is the point at which the versions diverge]
To whom belongeþ my liegance
Wiþ alle my hertes obeissaunce
In alle þat euere a liege man
Vnto his kyng may do or can
So ferforþ I me recomande
To hym whiche alle me may comannde,
Preiend vnto þe hi3e regne
Whiche causeþ euery kyng to regne
That his corone longe stonde.Hic declarat in primis qualiter ob reuerenciam serenissimi principis domini sui Regis Anglie Ricardi secundi totus suus humilis Iohannes Gower licet graui infirmitate a diu multipliciter fatigatus huius opusculi labores suscipere non recusauit set tanquam fauum ex variis floribus recollectum presentem libellum ex variis cronicis historiis poetarum philosoforumque dictis quatenus sibi infirmitas permisit studiosissime compilauit.
[First [the book] recounts how John Gower, out of reverence for his lord, the most serene prince Richard II, king of England– whose humble servant he is utterly– agreed to accept the burdens associated with this little work. [Indeed], even though he has for a long time been exhausted by a serious illness, he has– as far as his illness permits– most studiously compiled this little book from various chronicles, histories, and sayings of the poets and philosophers, just as honey is collected from various flowers.]
I þynke and haue it vndirstonde,
As it befelle vponne a tide,
As þing whiche scholde þo be tyde,
vndir þe toun of newe troie,
Whiche tok of Brut his first ioye,
In Temse whan it was flowende
As I be bote cam rowende,
So as fortune hir tyme sette,
My liege lorde per chaunce I mete,
And so befelle as i come nihe,
Oute of my bote, whan he me seihe,
He bade me come in to his barge:
And whanne I was with him at large,
Amonges oþer þinges seide
He haþ þis charge vponne me leide,
And bade me do my besynes
That to his heihe worþines
Some newe þinge I sholde boke,
That he hym selfe my3t loke
After þe forme of my wrytynge.
And þus vponne his comanndinge
Myne herte is wel þe more gladde
To write so as he me bade,
And eek my fere is wele þe las
That none Envi schal compasse
Wiþ oute a resonable wite
To feigne and blame þat i write.
A gentel herte his tong stilleþ,
That it malice non distilleþ,
But preiseþ þat is to be preised.
But he þat haþ his worde vnpeised
And handleþ outkronge euery þinge
I preie vnto þe heuene kynge
Ffro suche tonges he me schilde.
And Natheles þis worlde is wilde
Of suche Ianglynge, and whate bifalle
My kynges heste schal no3t falle,
That I, in hope to deserue
His þonke, ne schal his wille obserue;
And els were I no3t excused,
Ffor þat þinge may no3t be refused
Whiche þat a kyng him selfe bit.
Ffor þi þe simplesce of my wit
I þinke if þat it my3t availe
In his seruice to trauaile,
Thoghe I seknes haue vponne honde,
And longe haue had, 3it wol I fonde
So as i made my behest,
To make a boke after his heste,
And write in suche a manere wise
Whiche may be wisdome to þe wise,
And pleie to hem þat lusten pleie.
But in prouerbe I haue herde seie,
That who þat wel his werke begynneþ,
The raþir a good ende he wynneþ–
And þus þe prolonge of my booke
After þe worlde þat whilom toke,
And eke somdel after þe newe,
I wille begynne for to newe.
The John Gower Society home page has many useful links to texts, translations, sound files, and Gower scholarship.
The John Gower and Hypertext project has a growing collection of online resources relating to Gower.
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Copyright notice: This material is intended primarily for the use of students in English 350, and is drawn from my own ongoing research: please do not make use of it without permission. If you would like to contact me, you can e-mail me at sian@interchange.ubc.ca
