Vox Clamantis | |
---|---|
by John Gower | |
Translator | John Dryden Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Seamus Heaney Allen Mandelbaum Robert Fitzgerald Robert Fagles Frederick Ahl Sarah Ruden |
Written | 1370s–1400s |
First published in | 1400s |
Country | England |
Language | Latin |
Subject(s) | Peasant's Revolt, English society |
Genre(s) | Dream vision |
Meter | Elegiac couplet |
Publication date | 1370s–80s |
Media type | Manuscript |
Lines | 10,265 |
Vox Clamantis ("the voice of one crying out") is a Latin poem of 10,265 lines in elegiac couplets by John Gower (1330 – October 1408) . The first of the seven books is a dream vision giving a vivid account of the Peasants' Rebellion of 1381. Macaulay described the remaining books: "The general plan of the author is to describe the condition of society and of the various degrees of men, much as in the latter portion of the Speculum Meditantis."[1]: xxx Fisher concludes that books II-V were written in the 1370s while the author was writing similar passages in Mirour de l'Omme.[2]: 104