On Gower, the Kentish Poet, His Character and Works.
- Author/Editor
- Warwick, W[illiam].
- Title
- On Gower, the Kentish Poet, His Character and Works.
- Published
- Warwick, W[illiam]. "On Gower, the Kentish Poet, His Character and Works." Archaeologia Cantiana, 6 (1866): 83-107.
- Review
- Warwick opens with a brief biography, correcting then-current errors with surprising accuracy, e.g., Gower's lineage was not Yorkshire, but Kent and by way of proof prints line drawings of the effigy and arms of Sir Robert Gower, and of Gower's seal (85-86). His assessment of Gower's character makes use of documents related to Gower's land transactions (87-90). Warwick seems to have been the first to propose "three editions of the 'Confessio Amantis'"--what apparently became Macaulay's recensions: "the first, containing the compliments to Chaucer and the king; the second, omitting the praise of Chaucer when he had lost his place [i.e., in the wool staple]; and the third, expunging the praises of the king when he had lost his crown, and substituting for them a dedication to his successor" (94)--and perhaps first again to suggest that the character of Chaucer's January was based on Gower (105). The bulk of the article is an assessment, comparatively well balanced for a mid-Victorian, post-Romantic reader, of Gower's trilingual poetry ("he wrote a leash of languages," [97]), e.g., "And beyond all question, Gower contributed much to the moral philosophy of his country. But he was deficient in that living genius which brings man and nature before us as if alive again, and in that dramatic faculty which represents men, their feelings and their passions, in storied action" (106). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 44.1]
- Date
- 1866
- Gower Subjects
- Biography of Gower
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