John Gower

Abstract

John Gower was a trilingual poet, writing significant work in Latin, French, and English. He understood this fact as central to his poetic identity, and it certainly contributed to the influence of European writers on his work. His Confessio Amantis was translated into Portuguese and Castilian, making it, Gower’s editor G. C. Macaulay said, the first English book to be translated into another language. And yet, the Confessio is a self-consciously English poem, presenting itself as “a book for England’s sake,” and refracting the universalizing aspect of the many exemplary stories it contains through an awareness of recent political strife in England, particularly the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Gower’s various languages allowed him to seek a diverse audience and explore a range of genres, but it is also the case that his linguistic attainments seem to have made him very aware of the slipperiness of language. This essay explores Gower’s works through his linguistic diversity and, in particular, through a tension between the local and the larger world.