Quotes from work
Confessio Amantis
Confessio Amantis is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. According to its prologue, it was composed at the request of Richard II. It stands with the works of Chaucer, Langland, and the Pearl poet as one of the great works of late 14th-century English literature. The Index of Middle English Verse shows that in the era before the printing press it was one of the most-often copied manuscripts along with Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman .In genre it is usually considered a poem of consolation, a medieval form inspired by Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and typified by works such as Pearl. Despite this, it is more usually studied alongside other tale collections with similar structures, such as the Decameron of Boccaccio, and particularly Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with which the Confessio has several stories in common.
“O fol of alle foles,
Thou farst as he betwen tuo stoles
That wolde sitte and goth to grounde.”
Bk. 4, line 625.
Confessio Amantis
Bk. 6, line 31.
Confessio Amantis
“He hath the sor which no man heleth,
The which is cleped lack of herte.”
Bk. 4, line 334.
Confessio Amantis
Prologue (First recension), line 86.
Confessio Amantis
“It hath and schal ben everemor
That love is maister wher he wile.”
Bk. 1, line 34.
Confessio Amantis
Prologue, line 12.
Confessio Amantis
