SOURCE: Minnis, Alastair. “‘Moral Gower’ and Medieval Literary Theory.” In Gower's Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments, edited by A. J. Minnis, pp. 50-78. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983.

In the following essay, Minnis applies the medieval concept of “ethical poetry” to the Confessio Amantis.

Chaucer was paying Gower a considerable compliment when he dubbed him ‘moral Gower’. It is one of the ironies of modern criticism that this accolade has given recent readers of Confessio Amantis a stick with which to beat its author. In the minds of many, Gower is simply a ‘moral philosopher and friend of Chaucer’, the latter property being of some interest, but largely in respect of Chaucer's supposedly superior abilities, and the former being of little interest since as a philosopher Gower seems unoriginal. There is, however, another way of interpreting the facts. Current research into medieval literary theory—which had a strong moral...