Confessio Amantis

About

John Gower's Confessio Amantis (1390) is the most ambitious English poem of the generation before Chaucer's death: a frame narrative in which a lover confesses his sins against love to the priest Genius, who responds with tales drawn from classical mythology and medieval legend. The poem's range — moral philosophy, classical myth, love psychology, political allegory — is extraordinary, and individual tales (Medea, Philomela, Apollonius of Tyre — the source for Shakespeare's Pericles) are beautifully told. As a reading text, individual tales extracted from the frame work well.