Born about 1325: died in the priory of St. Mary Overies, Southwark, 1408. An English poet. Little is known of his early life, but he appears to have lived in Kent and to have been a man of wide reading. He was well known at court in his later years. His principal work, the “Confessio Amantis” (written in English, probably in 1386), was originally dedicated to Richard II., but in 1394 he changed the dedication to Henry of Lancaster (afterward Henry IV.). Caxton printed it in 1483. Among his other works are “Speculum Meditantis” (written in French, recently found) and “Vox Clamantis” (a poem written in Latin, begun in 1381). After the accession of Henry VI., Gower, then an old man, added a supplement, the “Tripartite Council.” It treats of occurrences of the time, and the strength of its aspirations and teaching caused Chaucer to call him “the moral Gower.” “Ballades” and other poems (mostly in French) were printed in 1818.

Personal

  Having written on the vanities of the world, I am about to leave the world. In my last verse I write that I am dying. Let him that comes after me write more discreetly than I have done, for now my hand and pen are silencing. I can do nothing of any value now with my hands. The labour of prayers is all that I can bear. I pray then with my tears, living, but blind. O God! protect the future reigns which thou hast established, and give me to share thy holy light.

  Bale makes him Equitem auratum & Poetam Laureatum, proving both from his Ornaments on his Monumental Statue in Saint Mary Overies, Southwark. Yet he appeareth there neither laureated nor hederated Poet (except the leaves of the Bayes and Ivy be withered to nothing since the erection of the Tomb) but only rosated, having a Chaplet of four Roses about his head. Another Author unknighteth him, allowing him only a plain Esquire, though in my apprehension the Colar of S.S.S. about his neck speak him to be more. Besides (with submission to better judgments) that Colar hath rather a Civil than Military relation, proper to persons in places of Judicature; which makes me guess this Gower some Judge in his old age, well consisting with his original education.

  This tripartite work is represented by three volumes on Gower’s curious tomb in the conventual church of Saint Mary Overee in Southwark, now remaining in its ancient state; and this circumstance furnishes me with an obvious opportunity of adding an anecdote relating to our poet’s munificence and piety, which ought not to be omitted. Although a poet, he largely contributed to rebuild that church in its present elegant form, and to render it a beautiful pattern of the lighter Gothic architecture: at the same time he founded, at his tomb, a perpetual chantry.

  In the life of this poet, almost the only certain incident seems to be his sepulchral monument: and even this it had been necessary to repair after the malignity of the iconoclasts; and, of the three sculptured volumes which support the poet’s head, a single one only has been opened by the world; for the tomb has perpetuated what the press has not.

Confessio Amantis, 1386?

  And who so ever in redynge of this worke doth consider it well, shall fynde that it is plentifully stuffed and fournished with manifolde eloquent reasons, sharpe and quicke argumentes, and examples of great aucthoritie, perswadynge unto vertue, not only taken out of the poets, oratours, historie-writers, and philosophers, but also out of the holy scripture. There is to my dome no man but that he maie by readinge of this worke get righte great knowledge, as well for the understandynge of many and divers auctours, whose reasons, sayenges, and histories, are translated in to this worke, as for the pleintie of English words and vulgars, beside the furtherance of the life to vertue.

  As Gower wrote much in French, it is but natural, that there should be in his English a large proportion of Norman-French words; even in the spelling, in which he adheres, if we go back to the more ancient MSS, to the form used by the French writers of his day. Yet the Saxon ingredient in his language is as large as in the works of his great contemporary, and comprises a considerable number of words, which at present are either obsolete, or have altogether changed their meaning. There are very few examples of alliteration and other characteristics of pure Saxonism…. His sentences are often diffuse, and ungrammatical; and it was evidently no easy task for him to compose this long poem in English.

  For the fashionable device of his poem Gower, infirm and elderly, cared little. To the best of his power he used it as a sort of earthwork from behind which he set himself the task of digging and springing a mine under each of the seven deadly sins.

  The verse is smooth and fluent, but the reader feels it to be the product of literary skill. It wants what can be imparted only by an unconscious might back of the consciously active and trained powers.

  Old Classic, and Romance tales come into it, and are fearfully stretched out; and there are pedagogic Latin rubrics at the margin, and wearisome repititions, with now and then faint scent of prettinesses stolen from French fabliaux: but unless your patience is heroic, you will grow tired of him; and the monotonous, measured, metallic jingle of his best verse is provokingly like the “Caw-caw” of the prim, black raven. He had art, he had learning, he had good-will; but he could not weave words into the thrushlike melodies of Chaucer. Even the clear and beautiful type of the Bell & Daldy edition does not make him entertaining. You will tire before you are half through the Prologue, which is as long, and stiff as many a sermon. And if you skip to the stories, they will not win you to liveliness: Pauline’s grace, and mishaps are dull; and the sharp, tragic twang about Gurmunde’s skull, and the vengeance of Rosemunde (from the old legend which Paul the Deacon tells) does not wake one’s blood.

  For if there be one indisputable fact in literary history, it is that Gower did not have the fame of Chaucer in his own age, and that he has never had it in any age that followed. Upon this matter enough has been said in the preceding pages to show that the reputation for good sense and good taste of the contemporaries of the two poets needs no defence upon this score. The same remark can be made of their immediate successors. Later times continue to bear testimony similar to that furnished by the earlier. The mere fact that no edition of the “Confessio Amantis” appeared form 1554 until 1857 disposes of itself of the fancy that Gower’s popularity ever stood for a moment in rivalry with that of Chaucer. Caxton had, indeed, printed his poem. During the sixteenth century two other editions of it appeared. These were sufficient to supply the demand both for that time and for the three hundred years that followed.

  Clearly a work of this sort cannot be read through, and as “skipping” must be indulged in, the most sensible course is to peruse only the tales. These tales are introduced nominally as exempla, though, in many instances, Gower ignores the true moral and drags in an application which does not tally; but that is one more reason why the context should be neglected…. The “Confessio Amantis,” however, is of considerable importance as the first collection of “novels” in English, and it is highly probable that its publication assisted, even more than the “Decameron,” in determining the form of the “Canterbury Tales.”

General

O moral Grower.

	Vnto (the) impnis of my maisteris dere,
	Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt
	Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here,
	Superlatiue as poetis laureate,
	In moralitee and eloquence ornate,
	I recommend my buk in lynis sevin,
	And eke thair saulis vn-to the blisse of hevin.

  Gower, that first garnisshed our Englisshe rude.

	O pensyfe herte,…
	Remembre the of the trace and daunce
	Of poetes olde wyth all the purveyaunce:
	As morall Gower, whose sentencyous dewe
	Adowne reflayreth with fayre golden bemes.

  And nere theim satte old morall Goore, with pleasaunte penne in hande, commendyng honeste love without luste, and pleasure without pride. Holinesse in the Cleargy without hypocrisie, no tyrannie in rulers, no falshode in Lawiers, no usurie in Marchauntes, no rebellion in the Commons and unitie emong kyngdomes.

  The first of our English Poets that I haue heard of, was Iohn Gower, about the time of king Rychard the seconde, as it should seeme by certayne coniectures bothe a Knight, and questionlesse a singuler well learned man: whose workes I could wysh they were all whole and perfect among vs, for no doubt they contained very much deepe knowledge and delight: which may be gathered by his freend Chawcer, who speaketh of him oftentimes, in diuer(s) places of hys workes.

  Gower sauing for his good and graue moralities, had nothing in him highly to be commended, for his verse was homely and without good measure, his wordes strained much deale out of the French writers, his ryme wrested, and in his inuentions small subtillitie: the aplications of his moralities are the best in him, and yet those many times very grossely bestowed, neither doth the substance of his workes sufficiently aunswere the subtilitie of his titles.

	Enter Grower.  Before the Palace of Antioch.
	To sing a song of old was sung,
	From ashes ancient Gower is come;
	Assuming man’s infirmities,
	To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
	It hath been sung at festivals,
	On ember-eves, and holy ales;
	And lords and ladies of their lives
	Have read it for restoratives:
	’Purpose to make men glorious;
	Et quo antiquius, eo melius.
	If you, born in these latter times,
	When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes,
	And that to hear an old man sing,
	May to your wishes pleasure bring,
	I life would wish, and that I might
	Waste it for you, like taper-light.

  Gower being very gracious with King Henrie the fourth, in his time carried the name of the only poet; but his verses, to say truth, were poor and plaine, yet full of good and grave moralitie, but while he affected altogether the French phrase and words, made himself too obscure to his reader, beside his invention cometh far short of the promise of his titles.

  That he was of all, the first polisher of his paternal tongue. For before his age the English language lay uncultivated, and almost entirely rude. Nor was there any one who had written any work in the vernacular tongue, worthy of an elegant reader. Therefore he thought it worth his while to apply a diligent culture, that thus the rude herbs being extirpated, the soft violet and the purple narcissus might grow instead of the thistle and thorns.

  He was the first Refiner of our English Tongue, effecting much, but endeavouring more therein. Thus he who sees the Whelp of a Bear but half lickt, will commend it for a comely Creature, in comparison of what it was when first brought forth. Indeed Gower left our English Tongue very bad, but found it very very bad.

  There is but little that is worth reading in Gower: he wants the spirit of poetry, and the descriptiveness, that are in Chaucer.

  The first of our authours, who can be properly said to have written English, was Sir John Gower.

  His education was liberal and uncircumscribed, his course of reading extensive, and he tempered his severer studies with a knowledge of life. By a critical cultivation of his native language, he laboured to reform its irregularities, and to establish an English style. In these respects he resembled his friend and cotemporary Chaucer: but he participated no considerable portion of Chaucer’s spirit, imagination, and elegance. His language is tolerably perspicuous, and his versification often harmonious: but his poetry is of a grave and sententious turn. He has much good sense, solid reflection, and useful observation. But he is serious and didactic on all occasions: he preserves the tone of the scholar and the moralist on the most lively topics. For this reason he seems to have been characterised by Chaucer with the appellation of the Morall Gower. But his talent is not confined to English verse only. He wrote also in Latin; and copied Ovid’s elegiacs with some degree of purity, and with fewer false quantities and corrupt phrases, than any of our countrymen had yet exhibited since the twelfth century.

  When in generous emulation of his contemporary, he felt impelled to write verses in his native tongue, he showed himself certainly not inferior in this new department of the poetic art, to what he had previously appeared in Latin and in French. He was not unworthy to be the fellow-labourer of Chaucer in the task of polishing our language; and there is a refinement of sentiment, and a gentle flow of expression in his English poetry, which sets him far above his successors of the fifteenth century.

  But Gower is not merely the moralist; he is also the genuine poet. Chaucer was his superior; but of all the authors who attempted narrative poetry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Gower may claim the seat nearest to his friend…. Gower’s mind had embraced the whole range of thought and study in that day. He had identified with his genius all the tales of the romances, as well as the knowledge of the academy; and he, and perhaps he only, could then combine so much ethical reasoning, so many interesting tales, such a power of riming, and such ability of narration. We must all feel, that in illustrating the use and effects of the virtues and vices of mankind by pleasing tales of life and fancy, instead of monstrous and enslaving legends, he contributed more to the improvement of society than any writer in England that had preceded him. He put English poetry into a better path than it had then visited; he gave it more imagery, feeling, dialogue, sentiment, and natural incident, than it had been connected with, until he wrote. He must therefore be allowed an honourable rank among the intellectual benefactors of his country, whether his actual writings be perused or forgotten.

  His writings exhibit all the crude erudition and science of his age; a knowledge sufficient to have been the fuel of genius, if Gower had possessed its fire.

  A vast interval must be made between Chaucer and any other English poet; yet Gower, his contemporary, though not, like him, a poet of Nature’s growth, had some effect in rendering the language less rude, and exciting a taste for verse. If he never rises, he never sinks low: he is always sensible, polished, perspicuous, and not prosaic in the worst sense of the word.

  Side by side with Chaucer comes Gower, who is ungratefully disregarded too often, because side by side with Chaucer. He who rides in the king’s chariot will miss the people’s “hic est.” Could Gower be considered apart, there might be found signs in him of an independent royalty, however his fate may seem to lie in waiting for ever in his brother’s ante-chamber, like Napoleon’s tame kings. To speak our mind, he has been much undervalued. He is nailed to a comparative degree; and everybody seems to make it a condition of speaking of him, that something be called inferior within him, and something superior out of him. He is laid down flat, as a dark background for “throwing out” Chaucer’s lights; he is used as a που στω for leaping up into the empyrean of Chaucer’s praise. This is not just nor worthy.

  The reputation of Gower, which was, for a long time, above his merits, seems to be in some measure due to his connection with Chaucer, though he did not entertain the views of reform which Chaucer shared with the other great writers of that century whom we have just named…. Though not without power as a sententious thinker, Gower gives little evidence of artistic skill, or of the possession of any of the higher attributes of the poet.

  Gower has positively raised tediousness to the precision of science, he has made dullness an heirloom for the students of our literary history. As you slip to and fro on the frozen levels of his verse, which give no foothold to the mind, as your nervous ear awaits the inevitable recurrence of his rhyme, regularly pertinacious as the tick of an eight-day clock and reminding you of Wordsworth’s

	“Once more the ass did lengthen out
	The hard, dry, seesaw of his horrible bray,”

you learn to dread, almost to respect, the powers of this indefatigable man. He is the undertaker of the fair mediæval legend, and his style has the hateful gloss, the seemingly unnatural length, of a coffin. Love, beauty, passion, nature, art, life, the natural and theological virtues,—there is nothing beyond his power to disenchant, nothing out of which the tremendous hydraulic press of his allegory (or whatever it is, for I am not sure if it be not something even worse) will not squeeze all feeling and freshness and leave it a juiceless pulp. It matters not where you try him, whether his story be Christian or pagan, borrowed from history or fable, you cannot escape him. Dip in at the middle or the end, dodge back to the beginning, the patient old man is there to take you by the button and go on with his imperturbable narrative.

  Doubtless here and there he contains a remnant of brilliancy and grace. He is like an old secretary of a Court of Love, Andre le Chapelain or any other, who would pass the day in solemnly registering the sentences of ladies, and in the evening, partly asleep on his desk, would see in a half-dream their sweet smile and their beautiful eyes. The ingenious but exhausted vein of Charles of Orléans still flows in his French ballads. He has the same fine delicacy, almost a little finicky. The poor little poetics spring flows yet in thin transparent films under the smooth pebbles, and murmurs with a babble, pretty, but so weak that at times you cannot hear it. But dull is the rest!

  Gower is intrinsically a much less significant figure than Langland.

  Gower was prolix where Chaucer was garrulous, and where Chaucer merely nodded he was overcome with slumber. No one cares to awaken the moral Gower: he sleeps the sleep of the just.

  He undoubtedly lacks the poet’s inspiration, but he claims to be nothing more than a moralist, an enthusiastic student of classical and mediæval literature, keenly alive to the failings of his own age. His varied erudition, his employment in his writings of the English language, in spite of his facility in both French and Latin, his simplicity and directness as a story-teller who is no servile imitator of his authorities, give his “Confessio” an historical interest which the frozen levels’ of its verse with “the clocklike tick of its rhymes” cannot destroy. In his French “balades” Gower reached a higher poetic standard. He shows much metrical skill, and portrays love’s various phases with the poet’s tenderness and sympathy. The literary quality of “Vox Clamantis” is not great. It is marred by false quantities and awkward constructions; but its high moral tone, and its notices of contemporary society, give it an important place in historical literature.

  His poetic talents were rather tame; he had a particularly receptive nature, and a decided mastery in the arrangement and form of verse, but was inclined to devote his powers to subjects that had no relation whatever to poetry.

  He was wholly conservative, wholly mediæval. He was a man of great learning and with considerable sense of style, but he had no instinct for variety. His English verse is fluent and harmonious, his language lucid, and even forcible at times, but he has no touch of brilliancy, no play of fancy, still less any imagination. He is earnest, sententious, and grave; he is never profound.

  And yet to this poor, prosy old poet was granted the supreme vision of that age: “One man, if he behave well, is worth more than planets and stars to Him who wields them all.”

  An absence of critical judgment, at which it is needless to affect surprise, led the contemporaries and successors of Chaucer to mention almost upon equal terms with him his friend and elder John Gower. To modern criticism this comparison has seemed, what indeed it is, preposterous, and we have now gone a little too far in the opposite direction. Gower is accused of extreme insipidity by those who, perhaps, have not read much of the current poetry of his day. He is sinuous, dull, uniform, but he does not deserve to be swept away with scorn. Much of his work has great historical value, much of it is skilfully narrated, and its long-winded author persists in producing some vague claim to be considered a poet.

  It would be a very great mistake to minimise or, like many, to pass by as negligible the contribution of Gower to English literature. Even in itself, if it has not the very highest qualities, it is far above contempt. Coleridge’s rather pettish wish that Chalmers had given Lydgate instead, must have been caused either by very excusable ignorance of Lydgate’s actual worth; or by a complete failure to recognise the formal superiority of Gower and the importance of his priority in time; or perhaps, and even probably, by that capriciousness which too often mars Coleridge’s criticism. The contemporaries of Chaucer and Gower, and the immediate successors who entered into their labours, made no such mistake, though in the fifteenth century they sometimes, and not quite unjustly, promoted Lydgate himself to the actual company of his masters. That, historically and as a master, Gower had a real right to be ranked with Chaucer, is as unquestionable as that Gower is vastly Chaucer’s inferior as a poet.