John Gower, Confessio Amantis

RF Yeager

Ed. by David Fuller, University of Durham
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.02: English Writing and Culture: High and Late Medieval, 1066-1485.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Rory Critten (Université de Lausanne), David Fuller (University of Durham), Natalie Hanna (University of Liverpool), Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast), Jamie McKinstry (University of Durham), Sarah Peverley (University of Liverpool), Sebastian Sobecki (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1390

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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The

Confessio Amantis

by John Gower (d. 1408) is one of perhaps half-a-dozen truly superior narrative poems written in England at the end of the fourteenth century. Laid out in eight Books of uneven size, the

Confessio

includes, in addition to a lengthy prologue and a substantial but somewhat shorter epilogue, more than a hundred and thirty stories spread over its 33,444 Middle English lines, arranged, predominantly, in tetrameter couplets. (The so-called “Lover’s Supplication”, twelve stanzas rhyming ABABBCC —rime royal—at lines 2217-2300 in Book VIII, constitutes the only exception.) Also integral to the

Confessio

are Latin verses, unrhymed elegiac couplets exclusively (save those at VIII.iv), which among other purposes serve to mark major subject changes; irregularly spaced…

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3648 words

Citation: Yeager, RF. "Confessio Amantis". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5913, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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