Editing John Gower (section)

==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.<ref name=Troilus>{{ cite book
 | title=Troilus and Criseyde
 | author=Geoffrey Chauucer | year=1380 
 | url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/257/257-h/257-h.htm
}}</ref>{{rp|line 1856}}  His primary mode is [[allegory]], although he shies away from sustained abstractions in favour of the plain style of the raconteur.

His earliest works were probably [[ballade (forme fixe)|ballade]]s in [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman French]], some of which may have later been included in his work the ''Cinkante Ballades''. 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. According to Yeager "Gower's first intent to write a poem for the instructional betterment of king and court, at a moment when he had reason to believe advice about social reform might influence changes predictably to take place in an expanded jurisdiction, when the French and English peoples were consolidated under a single crown."<ref>{{ cite journal
 | title=Gower's French Audience: The Mirour de l'Omme
 | author=Robert F. Yeager | journal=The Chaucer Review | volume=41 | issue=2
 |year=2006
 | url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cr/summary/v041/41.2yeager.html
}}</ref>

Gower's second major work, the ''[[Vox Clamantis]]'', was written in Latin. 
The first book has an allegorical account of the [[Peasants' Revolt]]  which begins as an allegory, becomes quite specific and ends with an allusion to [[William Walworth]]’s suppression of the rebels.<ref name=MacLatin/>{{rp|xxxiv-xl}}   Gower takes the side of the aristocracy but the actions of Richard II are described by "the captain in vain endeavoured to direct the ship’s course".<ref name=MacLatin/>{{rp|xxxix}}Subsequent books decry the sins of various classes of the social order: priests, friars, knights, peasants, merchants, lawyers. The last two books give advice to King Richard II and express the poet's love for England.<ref name=MacLatin />{{rp|xxx-lvii}} As Gower admits,<ref>Vox Clamatis Prologos Libri Secunti</ref> much of ''Vox Clamantis'' was borrowed from other authors. [[George Campbell Macaulay|Macaulay]] refers to this as "schoolboy plagiarism"<ref name=MacLatin/>{{rp|xxxii}} Peter classifies ''Mirour'' and ''Vox'' as "complaint literature" in the vein of Langland.<ref>{{ cite journal
 | title=Reviewed Work: Complaint and Satire in Early English Literature by John Peter
 | author=Sears Jayne
 | journal=Modern Philology | volume=55
 | issue=3
 | year=1958  |pages=200–202
 | publisher=University of Chicago Press
 | jstor=434965
| doi=10.1086/389217
 }}</ref>

His third work is the ''[[Confessio Amantis]]'', a 30,000-line poem in octosyllabic [[Middle English|English]] couplets, which makes use of the structure of a Christian [[Confession (religion)|confession]] (presented allegorically as a confession of sins against Love) as a [[frame story|narrative frame]] within which a multitude of individual tales are told.{{rp|I.203–288}}  Like his previous works, the theme is very much morality, even where the stories themselves have a tendency to describe rather immoral behaviour.  One scholar asserts that ''Confessio Amantis'' "almost exclusively" made Gower's "poetic reputation."<ref>Grey, Douglas. "John Gower." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford UP, 2004.</ref>

Fisher views the three major works as "one continuous work" with ''In Praise of Peace'' as a capstone. There is "movement from the courtly tone of the ''Cinkante Balades'' to the moral and philosophical tone of the ''Traitie''." Leland<ref name=Leland>{{ cite book
 | title=Commentarii de Scriptoribus Brittannicis
 | author=John Leland  | year=1540 |language=la
}}</ref> (ca 1540)<ref name=FisherMP/>{{rp| Fisher translation 136}} states "that the three works were intended to present a systematic discourse upon the nature of man and society": <blockquote>They provide as organized and unified a view as we have of the social ideals on England upon the eve of the Renaissance. This view may be subsumed under the three broad headings: individual VIRTUE, legal JUSTICE, and the administrative responsibility of the KING. The works progress from the description of the origins of sin and the nature of the vices and virtues at the beginning of the ''Mirour de l'omme'', through consideration of social law and order in the discussion of the three estates in the ''Mirour'' and ''Vox Clamatis'', to a final synthesis of royal responsibiity of [[Empedoclean]] love in the ''Confessio Amantis''.<ref name=FisherMP/>{{rp| 136}}</blockquote>

In later years Gower published a number of minor works in all three languages: 
* the ''Cinkante Ballades'', a series of French ballades on romantic subjects. Yeager (2011) argues that these sonnets were composed throughout Gower's lifetime.<ref>{{Cite book
 | chapter=Cinkante Balades: Introduction
 | editor=R. F. Yeager  | publisher=Medieval Institute Publications
 | title=The French Balades   | year=2011
 | chapter-url=http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/yeager-gower-french-balades-cinkante-balades-introduction}}</ref>
* the English poem ''In Praise of Peace'' "is a political poem in which Gower, as a loyal subject of Henry IV, approves his coronation, admires him as the saviour of England, dilates on the evil of war and the blessing of peace, and finally begs him to display clemency and seek domestic peace"<ref>{{ cite book
 | title=John Gower, the medieval poet
 | author=Masayoshi Itô
 | publisher=Shinozaki Shorin  |year=1976 
 | url=http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/yeager-gower-minor-latin-works-livingston-in-praise-of-peace-introduction
}}</ref>{{rp|106}} Fisher argued that it was "Gower's last important poem. It sums up the final twenty years of both his literary career and his literary achievement."<ref name=FisherMP>{{ cite book
 |title=John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer |url=https://archive.org/details/johngowermoralph00fish |url-access=registration | isbn=978-0814701492
 | author=John H. Fisher  | year=1964 | publisher=New York University Press
}}</ref>{{rp|133}}
* short Latin works on various subjects with several poems addressed to the new [[Henry IV of England|Henry IV]].  According to Yeager (2005) "his final metered thoughts were in Latin, the language that Gower, like most of his contemporaries, associated with timeless authority."<ref name=YeagerLatin>{{cite book
  | title=The Minor Latin Works with In Praise of Peace | chapter=Introduction
  | author=John Gower   | editor1=R. F. Yeager | editor2=Michael Livingston
 | publisher=Medieval Institute Publications   | year=2005
 | chapter-url=http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/yeager-gower-the-minor-latin-works-with-in-praise-of-peace
}}</ref>

Critics have speculated on which late work triggered the royal wine allowance mentioned in the Life section. Candidates are ''Cronica tripertita'',<ref name=Carlson/><ref>{{ cite book
 | title=A companion to Gower  | editor=Siân Echard | year=2004 | isbn=978-1843842446
 | chapter=Iohannes Gower, armiger, poeta: records and memorials of his life and death
 | author1=John Hines   | author2=Nathalie Cohen   | author3=Simon Roffey
| publisher=D.S. Brewer }}</ref>{{rp|26}} ''In Praise of Peace'',<ref name=FisherPinti>{{ cite book
 | title=Writing After Chaucer: Essential Readings in Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century
 | editor=Daniel Pinti  | year=1998  |isbn=978-0815326519
 | chapter=A Language Policy for Lancastrian England | author=John H. Fisher
| publisher=Psychology Press }}</ref>{{rp|85}}  ''O Recolende''<ref>Henry was crowned 13 October 1399. His grant to Gower was doubtless in recognition of the political support reflected in the ''Chronica Tripertita'' and other Latin poems. The ''Epistola brevi'' (aka ''O Recolende'') (Macaulay, 4:345) would appear to contain an acknowledgement of the grant (lines 19–21).<br />{{ cite journal
 | title=Calendar of Documents relating to the life of John Gower the Poet
 | author=John H Fisher 
 | journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
 |issue=58#1  |year=1959  |pages=1–23
}}</ref> or an illustrated presentation copy of Confessio with dedication to Henry IV.<ref>{{ cite book
 | title=The Late Medieval Age of Crisis and Renewal, 1300–1500
 | author=Clayton J. Drees   | year=2001  | isbn=978-0313305887 | page=198
 | publisher=Bloomsbury Academic | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jDfydG6ReAC&q=%22john+Gower%22+%22two+pipes%22&pg=PA198
}}</ref> According to Meyer-Lee "no known evidence relates the collar or grant [of wine] to his literary activity."<ref>{{ cite book
 | title=Poets and Power from Chaucer to Wyatt  | isbn=9780521863551
 | author=Robert J. Meyer-Lee  | year=2007 | publisher=Cambridge University Press
}}</ref>