The Major Latin Works of John Gower: The Voice of One Crying and The Tripartite Chronicle

An Annotated Translation into English With an Introductory Essay on the Author' Non-English Works by Eric W. Stockton. The fourteenth century in England would be fascinating even if it had not produced Chaucer. The medieval world was slowly breaking up; it had been an interesting world, and its passing away was no less interesting, though men in the time of John Gower (1330-1408) viewed its decline largely as a serious if reparable dislocation of society and Church. The turmoil was somewhat like that of our own age: The agency of internationalism was troubled by growing nationalism, the Christian Church was torn by ideological factions; knowledge of the sciences was increasing; wars were becoming deadlier; and the lower class was no longer content to remain the anonymous masses. As in our own century, England seemed to be at the top of Fortune's wheel; that height only made the subsequent fall the greater. The second half of the fourteenth century saw nearly everything go wrong for English politics, peace, and plenty, though not for literature. The poems translated in this volume, however, are not the aesthetic glories of their time — which is not surprising in an age of Chaucer, Langland, and the poet or poets of MS. Cotton Nero A. x. Rather, these poems, John Gower's 'Vox Clamantis' and 'Cronica Tripertita', are worthy of consideration after nearly six hundred years because they give copious, thoughtful comment upon an England in a time still somewhat dark, and because they also throw light upon other literature in an age rich in literature.