In French he wrote "Le Mirour de l'Omme," "Man's Mirror," which has a curious history.[3]
The "Mirour," in French, and the "Speculum" in Latin, deal allegorically with virtues, vices, and the way of salvation; they contain many stories from all quarters, which are retold by Gower in English, in his immense "Lover's Confession".
In his Latin "Vox Clamantis" (1381) ("The Voice of one crying") and in his "Mirour de l'Omme," but especially in the former, Gower had given his testimony against the sins of the age, and had impartially rebuked all sorts and conditions of men. He described the peasant rising, under Wat Tyler and others, of 1381, exculpating King Richard, who was only a brave boy. But, as time went on, and dissatisfaction increased, Gower turned from Richard, and, very early, to the son of John of Gaunt, later Henry IV. Gower transferred his affections so early to Henry, that it would be unfair to call him a venal turncoat: he saw no hope for English liberty except in the Lancastrian cause.
Probably about 1390, and at the suggestion of Richard II himself, Gower abandoned unmitigated sermonizing in verse: renounced the ambition to reform the world by rhyme, and mingled, as he says, pleasure with morality in the endless "Lover's Confession," the work on which his reputation as an English poet rests. He professes his desire to make a work for England's sake, and, in early versions, declares that Richard II called him into his barge on the Thames, and set him to the task. It was to be "some new thing" readable by his Majesty. After a moral prologue Gower tells how he met Venus, in May of course, and how she gave him her chaplain, Genius, as a confessor. To Genius Gower makes his confessions as a lover, and Genius preaches to him, illustrating every homily with a tale. It is by the tales, and by some pretty passages descriptive of true love, that the poem survives. Most of the stories are borrowed from Roman literature. The Greek reader is surprised to find that the Sirens had fishes' tails, a fact unknown to Homer, or to Greek art; which usually represented them as birds with the heads of women. The Trojan horse is of bronze, whereas it was notoriously of wood. The tale of Alboin and Rosamund, and the cup made of her father's skull, is told pleasantly, but the truly tragic situation is slurred over and lost; and the tale of Hercules and Deianira, and the fatal garment of Nessus the Centaur, is also far from worthy of the tragic Greet theme; of the pity and terror of the legend.
Perhaps Shakespeare admired Gower's "Pyramus and Thisbe," which the Athenian craftsmen dramatize in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The "Jason and Medea" is one of the best tales; but Gower did not know the Greek version by Apollonius Rhodius, or the "Medea" of Euripides; and his own genius rises to no such picture of a maiden's love as Apollonius draws, to no such tragic passion as Euripides conceives, while he has little or none of the humour of Chaucer.
None the less here was a book of many thousand lines, full of the material of old romance, mediaeval or classical: here the verse ran easily, copiously, and sweetly, for Gower was a master of the rhymed octosyllabic couplets, through his knowledge of and practice in versification both French and English. Indeed his style, soon to be lost by English versifiers, is his main virtue.
At last he confesses to Venus that he knows not the true nature of Love. She gives him a black rosary of beads—like that which Chaucer holds in his portrait,—with the motto in gold, por reposer, "Take thy rest". He is to write of Love no more, no more to come to Venus's Court, so, in 1398, the foolish veteran did make love, and married Agnes Groundolf! He survived this unseasonable wooing for ten years, when Agnes came into his property.
The reputation of Gower, for long, was very high; people spoke of Chaucer and Gower as we speak of Browning and Tennyson, or of Shelley and Keats. But no longer with Chaucer is Gower "equalled in renown," and his most enduring monument is Shakespeare's introduction of him in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre".
[1] Calthrops, used at Bannockburn, were iron sets of spikes; Joan of Arc was wounded by a calthrop at the siege of Orleans.