Mirour de l'Omme

Detail from tomb of John Gower in Southwark Cathedral, Southwark, London, England. The head of the effigy rests on three books. Gower wrote Vox Clamantis in Latin, Speculum Meditantis in French and Confessio Amantis in English. Photographed by Karen Townsend in 2006.

Mirour de l'Omme ("the mirror of mankind") (also Speculum Hominis), which has the Latin title Speculum Meditantis ("mirror of meditation"), is an Anglo-Norman poem of 29,945 lines written in iambic octosyllables by John Gower (c. 1330 – October 1408). Gower's major theme is man's salvation. Internal evidence (no mention of Richard II) suggests that composition was completed before 1380. G. C. Macaulay discovered the only manuscript in the Cambridge University Library.[1]: xviii  Only part of the poem survives; the conclusion has been lost.

  1. ^ G.C. Macaulay (ed.). "Introduction". The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol 1 The French Works (PDF). p. xiii.