Gower’s Quatrains: Language, Rhyme, Occasion

Abstract

ABSTRACT John Gower is known for writing long. After composition of Vox clamantis, however, Gower simultaneously wrote short, mastering the art of the quatrain. This is the form of his very shortest authenticated poems. They form a set. All are in Latin. All employ internal rhyme. These jingling poems stand out from the slow, lugubrious music of the nearly rhymeless Vox clamantis. Gower turned the difficulties of the quatrain-length poem to advantage, composing a series of postage-stamp Latin poems that comment on the vastnesses of his life in poetry. From the archer poem “Ad mundum mitto,” associated with Vox clamantis, to the prophetic Lancastrian encomium H. aquile pullus, in Gower’s quatrains we find an art of literary asceticism that sorts oddly with the poet’s current reputation for prolixity.