John Gower

The introduction to the new edition and translation of John Gower’s fourteenth-century Latin poems Visio Anglie and Cronica tripertita opens with a poetic self-portrait that both reveals and conceals. Summarising his achievements in poetry, Gower notes that ‘at the world is where I aim my bow’ and warns ‘Do know yourselves, therefore: you may find yourselves herein’. Gower’s arrows pierce the reader not to puncture him or her, but to force open a mode of self-reflection. His work, from the allegorical Mirour de l’omme to the estates-satire of the Vox clamantis to the confessional narrative of the Confessio amantis, provides a mirror of virtue and vice for the reader. David Carlson persuasively argues in this introduction that Gower’s work should be seen as a whole: these three major works were consciously edited by Gower alongside the minor works into ‘one thing yet comprising what remained distinct, separable parts’. With this in mind, how vital it is that the Visio Anglie and Cronica tripertita should be made more accessible, through the provision of both a more accurate and annotated Latin edition and a modern English translation

Art · Confessional · Epistemology · Genius · Literature · Narrative · Poetry · Politics · Virtue · History · Law · Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies · Medieval European Literature and History · Philosophy