GOWER, John, English poet: b. probably about 1325; d. London, October 1408. But lit tle is known of his life save that he was rich and well educated, did not marry till late in life and became blind about 1400. His tomb is still to be seen in Saint Saviour's. Southwark. He was a personal friend of Chaucer, who, in dedicating to him his
The long prologue gives a sombre account of the state of the world at that time, and the poem opens by introducing the author him self in the character of an unhappy lover. It ends with the lover's petition in a strophic poem addressed to Venus, her judgment, and finally the lover's cure and absolution. With out originality— in J. Russell Lowell's phrase he "raised tediousness to the precision of a science"— narrative power, pathos or humor, Gower yet commands respect for the laborious equality of his verse, and his work remains a splendid monument of English. Consult Pauli's edition (1857) ; Henry Morley's serv iceable reprint in the