CHAUCER AND GOWER.--That there was for a time a mutual admiration between
Chaucer and Gower, is shown by their allusion to each other. In the
penultimate stanza of the Troilus and Creseide, Chaucer calls him "O
Morall Gower," an epithet repeated by Dunbar, Hawes, and other writers;
while in the _Confessio Amantis_, Gower speaks of Chaucer as his disciple
and poet, and alludes to his poems with great praise. That they were at
any time alienated from each other has been asserted, but the best
commentators agree in thinking without sufficient grounds.
The historical teachings of Gower are easy to find. He states truths
without parable. His moral satires are aimed at the Church corruptions of
the day, and yet are conservative; and are taken, says Berthelet, in his
dedication of the Confessio to Henry VIII., not only out of "poets,
orators, historic writers, and philosophers, but out of the Holy
Scripture"--the same Scripture so eloquently expounded by Chaucer, and
translated by Wiclif. Again, Gower, with an eye to the present rather than
to future fame, wrote in three languages--a tribute to the Church in his
Latin, to the court in his French, and to the progressive spirit of the
age in his English.
Pages:
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144