Vox Clamantis
Encyclopedia
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
poem of around 10,000 lines in elegiac
Elegiac
Elegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter...
verse by John Gower
John Gower
John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which...
that recounts the events and tragedy of the 1381 Peasants' Rising
Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, Wat Tyler's Rebellion, or the Great Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval Europe and is a major event in the history of England. Tyler's Rebellion was not only the most extreme and widespread insurrection in English history but also the...
. 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.
Gower's earlier Mirour l'Omme had proposed the metaphor of the microcosm: man is, within himself, a miniature world and a metaphor of the world. As disorders occur in the man, they occur in the wider world. In Vox Clamantis, the same general trope is employed, but Gower emphasizes the role of the political, with a dire view of the effects of the polis and political on both the man and the cosmos. Gower outlines the proper duty of each of the three estates of society and argues that none of those alive were close to acting in a proper manner.
The poem is an important account of life under Richard II
Richard II of England
Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and the effects of the peasants' rebellion. Using the rebellion (which clinched several demands for the peasants) as an allegory, Gower expresses his concern for a future vacant of law and education. Gower, who frequently stressed the importance of each concept in his work, feared that either would be meaningless in a land rife with barbarism and chaos, and men of his position would have no purpose.
Gower’s Latin poetry is well executed by medieval standards, with both vocabulary and prosody handled with competence. A very large number both of couplets and longer passages are borrowed from other writers, often from Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
or a medieval writer, such as Alexander Neckam
Alexander Neckam
Alexander Neckam was an English scholar and teacher.-Biography:Born at St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, Neckam's mother, Hodierna, nursed the prince with her own son, who thus became Richard's foster-brother...
, Peter de Riga, Godfrey of Viterbo
Godfrey of Viterbo
Godfrey of Viterbo was a Roman Catholic chronicler, either Italian or German.-Biography:He was probably an Italian by birth, although some authorities assert that he was a Saxon German like his imperial patrons...
, or the author of Speculum Stultorum.
Like the poem, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
's motto, "Vox Clamantis in Deserto," alludes to the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
(where the voice is that of John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
), quoting the Book of Isaiah
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
.