The Confessio Amantis by John Gower (d. 1408) is one of perhaps half-a-dozen truly superior narrative poems written in England at the end of the fourteenth century. Laid out in eight Books of uneven size, the Confessio includes, in addition to a lengthy prologue and a substantial but somewhat shorter epilogue, more than a hundred and thirty stories spread over its 33,444 Middle English lines, arranged, predominantly, in tetrameter couplets. (The so-called “Lover’s Supplication”, twelve stanzas rhyming ABABBCC —rime royal—at lines 2217-2300 in Book VIII, constitutes the only exception.) Also integral to the Confessio are Latin verses, unrhymed elegiac couplets exclusively (save those at VIII.iv), which among other purposes serve to mark major subject changes; irregularly spaced Latin prose passages that variously add to, comment on—and sometimes seem even to contradict—the Middle English narratives are...
3648 words
Citation: Yeager, RF. "Confessio Amantis". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5913, accessed 16 December 2025.]
