Kingship & Common Profit in Gower's Confessio Amantis

Book excerpt: Confessio Amantis, the principal work in English by John Gower, friend of Chaucer, by whom he was influenced, has always been read as a conventional poem about the seven deadly sins. Here, paying particular attention to the poem's language and style, Peck gives a brilliant new reinterpretation which not only illuminates the poem's elegant beauty but provides a profound moral purpose as well. Gower's Confessio, according to Peck, is a restatement of late fourteenth-cen­tury ideas of good and bad behavior, and is designed to illuminate and re­shape the minds and hearts of men. Peck sees the concepts of "kingship"--the governance of souls as well as king­doms--and "common profit"--the mutual enhancement of such king­doms--as the poem's unifying ideas. Peck's discussion further shows how the various tales hold together and support the poem's loose plot and the poet's strongly moral intention.