Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Confessio Amantis, the Lovers Shrift
Even so, it works. And the occasional cumbrousness is amply paid for by the very human characters that emerge, of the Lover and his Lady. We are given not only the medieval conventions of love, but vignette after vignette of medieval life as it really was. Gower seldom describes people with Chaucer's vivid minuteness; but his characters do 'come alive'.
It was at one time the fashion to compare Gower and Chaucer much in the manner of the school examinee comparing Keats and Shelley. This is an unrewarding pastime, for Gower's aims were quite different from those of his friend: more modest, more sober, more serious. Gower has less wit and humour, less drama and panache, not only by nature but also by choice. Never theless, these qualities are by no means absent. And, when he chooses, Gower can rise to real eloquence and splendour as in his many descriptions of weather, or in the 'prayer of Cephalus and the Tale of Ceyx and Halcyone' (both in Book Four). He is capable of real pathos, as in the 'tale of Canace' (book Three) and of genuine excitement, as in the 'tale of Medea (book Five). His most remarkable quality, however, is his tireless ease and ?uency all in meticulous rhyme and metre while avoiding both monotony and 'bittiness He was a lesser poet; but he was, in his chosen way, almost as great a craftsman as was Chaucer in his.
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