Term
| Confessio Amantis ("The Lover's Confession") |
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Definition
| 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. |
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Term
| Vox Clamantis ("the voice of one crying out") |
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Definition
| John Gower. A Latin poem of around 10,000 lines in elegiac verse by John Gower that recounts the events and tragedy of the 1381 Peasants' Rising. The poem takes aim at the corruption of society and laments the rise of evil. Gower takes an entirely aristocratic side in the poem, regarding the peasants' claims as invalid and their actions as following the anti-Christ. |
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Term
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Definition
| Chaucer, re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of two lovers against a backdrop of war in the Siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale. Considered a courtly romance |
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Term
| The Book of Margery Kempe |
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Definition
| Margery Kempe. Considered the first autobiography in English. Written about her devotion to God and many pilgrimages. |
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