Confessio Amantis

John Gower, Medieval Academy of America

University of Toronto Press, Jan 1, 1980 - Poetry - 525 pages

Originally published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966.

Contents

• INTRODUCTION: xi
• CHRONOLOGY OF GCWERS LIFE AND WORKS: xxx
• THE LANGUAGE OF GOWER: xxxiv
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CRITICISM: xliv
• PROLOGUS: 1
• THE STATE: 4
• THE CHURCH: 6
• THE COMMONS: 15
• NEBUCHADNEZZARS DREAM: 18
• LIBER PRIMUS PRIDE: 33
• TALE OF ACTEON: 43
• TALE OF MEDUSA: 44
• TALE OF MUNDUS AND PAULINA: 49
• TALE OF FLORENT: 58
• TRUMP OF DEATH: 72
• TALE OF NARCISSUS: 79
• TALE OF ALBINUS AND ROSEMUND: 82
• NEBUCHADNEZZARS PUNISHMENT: 88
• TALE OF THREE QUESTIONS: 91
• LIBER SECUNDUS ENVY: 103
• THE TRAVELERS AND THE ANGEL: 105
• TALE OF CONSTANCE: 108
• TALE OF DEIANIRA AND NESSUS: 139
• TALE OF CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER: 147
• LIBER TERCIUS WRATH: 158
• TALE OF CANACE AND MACHAIRE: 159
• TIRESIAS AND THE SNAKES: 165
• THE PATIENCE OF SOCRATES: 168

About the author

Best known as "moral Gower," as he is called by his friend Chaucer in the dedication of Troilus and Criseyde, Gower composed "balades" in the French fashion as well as three long poems, representing the trilingual status of the cultural and political elite of late fourteenth-century England. Mirour de l'Homme (Mirror of Man) (c.1376--78), a mammoth French poem of some 30,000 lines, deals with the seven deadly sins. Vox Clamantis (Voice of One Crying) (c.1379--81), in Latin, is a prophetic attack on contemporary political and social abuses in response to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Gower's lengthy and occasionally dreary Middle English poem Confessio Amantis (Lover's Confession) (1390), portions of which influenced Chaucer, is set as an allegorical confession of the poet-lover to Genius, the priest of Venus. In 34,000 lines, he retells several classical love stories illustrating cupidity and the other deadly sins.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Confessio Amantis; Volume 9 of Mediaeval Academy of America Cambridge, Mass: Medieval Academy reprints for teaching; Issue 9 of Medieval Academy reprints for teaching
• Authors: John Gower, Medieval Academy of America
• Editor: Russell A. Peck
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1980
• ISBN: 0802064388, 9780802064387
• Length: 525 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh