Chapter Goodall to Gower of G by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

was followed by Vox Clamantis (the Voice of one crying) written in Latin, giving an account of the peasants’ revolt of 1381, and attacking the misgovernment and social evils which had led to it. His third, and only English poem, was Confessio Amantis (Lover’s Confession), a work of 30,000 lines, consisting of tales and meditations on love, written at the request of Richard II. It is the earliest large collection of tales in the English tongue. In his old age Gower became blind. He had, when about 70, retired to the Priory of St. Mary Overies, the chapel of which is now the Church of St. Saviour, Southwark, where he spent his last years, and to which he was a liberal benefactor. Gower represented the serious and cultivated man of his time, in which he was reckoned the equal of Chaucer, but as a poet he is heavy and prolix.