GO VIPER, JoHN ( c.1325-1408 ) . An English poet. He was probably connected with the family of Sir Robert Gower (died about 1349), a large land holder in Suffolk and in Kent. He married (prob ably for the second time) in 1397. He was then residing in the priory of Saint Mary Overies, Southwark. In some way he made money, with which he bought land. It is inferred from his writings that he was a merchant, very likely an exporter of wool. Chaucer dedicated to him Troilus and Cressida., and before going abroad in 1378, nominated him one of his attorneys. Gower, in turn, paid Chaucer a compliment near the close of the Confessio Amantis (first version). In 1400 Gower became blind. He died in 1408 (between August 15th and October 24th), and was buried in Saint Saviour's Church, Southwark.
Gower sought to rest his fame on three great poems, written in three languages, French, Latin, and English. To each poem he gave a Latin title. The first, "Speculum Meditantis" (as signed to 1376-79), long supposed to be lost, was identified by G. C. Macaulay, in 1895, with a manuscript in the Cambridge University library, bearing the title "Mirour de l'Ornme." The poem aims to give a complete account of the moral nature of man and to explain God's dealings with him and the world. The second poem, "Vox Clamantis" (1382-84?), written in Latin elegiac verse, describes the insurrection led by \Vat Tyler. Of the third poem, "Confessio Amantis," there are two versions, one dedicated to King Richard II. and the other to Henry of Lancaster.
They are assigned respectively to 1383 and 1393. The poem. which contains about 30,000 octo syllabic lines, is divided into a prologue and eight books. -After the long prologue descriptive of the degradation of the time, a lover appeals to Venus to cure his malady. Venus sends a con fessor called Genius to shrive him. Then ensues a long dialogue, in wide]] the confessor relates current moral stories for the purpose of warning the lover against the various vices. Besides these longer works, Gower wrote minor poems in French, Latin, and English. Among them are the Traitie (1397?) nail the Cinkante Raladcs (1399?), both in French verse. The former sets forth the nature of the marriage state; the lat• ter, a collection of fifty-one ballades, contains more poetic feeling than Gower's other poems. Chaucer called his contemporary 'moral Gower.' The epithet exactly describes the intent of all his work. Possessing no originality, Gower took tales from many sources and moralized them. Popular in his own time, and long re garded as the equal of Chaucer, he has become for the modern reader tedious and monotonous. With some exaggeration, Lowell called him "the undertaker of the fair medixral legend." His work, however, has very great philological inter est. His Complete Works were edited by G. C. Macaulay (Oxford and New York, 1902).