Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/768

This page needs to be proofread.
686

GOYA


686


GOYA


the laws, and to banish crime. In the last book the poet shows the evils of vice and the necessity of repentance. It was probably begun in 1381 or 1382 and completed about 1399.

The "Cronica Tripertita" is written in rhyming hexameters and is in three parts, containing 1055 lines, with Latin prose marginal summaries. It gives an account of King Richard's management of the affairs of the realm from 1387 imtil his deposition and the accession of Henry IV in 139). It was probably written soon after the latter date. The " Vox Cla- mantis" and the "Cronica Tripertita", together with some of the minor Latin poems, were printed by the Roxburghe Club in 1850 (ed. H. O. Coxe); the "Cron- ica Tripertita" and some minor poems were printed in the "Political Poems", Rolls Series, by T. Wright; and four other minor poems were printed by Karl Meyer in his dissertation entitled "John Gower's Beziehungen Zu Chaucer und Richard II" (1889). All the Latin poems were printed by G. C. Macaulay in 1902.

Gower's English works are the "Confessio Amantis" and a poem addres.sed to King Henry IV, which from its subject has been called " In Praise of Peace". The " Confessio Amantis" is in a prologue and eight books. It is written throughout in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, with Latin verses interspersed and a Latin marginal summary of the text. It contains alto- gether 33,446 English lines. It was begun probably between 1383 and 1386, and finished in 1390, and it underwent two subsequent revisions about 1391 and 1393. In its plan, which was doubtless borrowed from the "Roman de la Rose", this work is a dialogue first between the poet, in the character of a lover, and Venus, and afterwards between the poet, in the charac- ter of a penitent, and Genius, whom Venus assigns to him as confessor. In the conversation between the penitent and the confessor the seven deadly sins are discussed and illustrated by tales borrowed from Ovid, Josephus, Vincent de Beauvais, Statins, the "Gesta Romanorum", the Bible, and other sources. In the eighth book, having described the duty of a king and prayed for England, the poet bids farewell to earthly love.

The "Confessio Amantis" has come down to us in three classes of manuscripts. The principal devia- tions of the later from the earlier forms are the omis- sions (1) of the mention of Richard II in the prologue as the inspirer of the work, and (2) of complimentary references to Chaucer near the end of the eighth book. The reasons for these omissions are somewhat obscure. In the case of the king the change in the text may perhaps be set down to a disapproval of the royal policy which grew up in Gower's mind between the time he began and that at which he completed the work, and this view is made all the more probable when we remember the severe way in which he else- where treats the youthful monarch. In the case of Chaucer the omission may have been due to a feeling on the part of Cower that the lines were irrelevant; l)Ut it is more likely to have been the result of a liter- ary quarrel.

"In Praise of Peace" is a poem in fifty-six stanzas of seven lines each, rhyming ah ab bcc. It is dedicated to Henry IV and was probably written in 1400. It is followed by fifty-six lines of elegiac Latin verse.

The "Confessio Amantis" was translated into Portuguese by Robert Payn, canon of the city of Lis- bon, and into Spanish prose by Juan de Cuenca in 1400. It was printed by Caxton in 1483, by Ber- thelette in 1532 and 1554, by Chalmers in 1810, by Pauli in 1857, by Morley in 1899, and, with "In Praise of Peace", by G. C. Macaulay in 1901.

There are several manuscripts of Gower's works extant, ranging from forty-one (some of them imper- fect) of the " (tonfessio Amantis" to one of the " Mir- our de I'Orame", of the "Cinkante Balades", and of


"In Praise of Peace". These manuscripts are to be found in various public and private libraries in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Lincoln, Dublin, Man- chester, and elsewhere.

It is to be noted that while Gower on several occa- sions freely censures the vices of the clergy of every rank, secular and regular, he expressly disassociates himself from all sympathy with the Lollards, and strongly denounces "lollardie" in his later writings. He lived and died in full communion with the Catholic Church. It was unfortunate for Gower's reputation that for more than two centuries he was constantl}' associated with Chaucer and mentioned alorig with him, both being taken as typical writers of English verse of the fourteenth century. As the canons of criticism developed, it was inevitable that the minor poet should suffer from contrast with his great con- temporary. Hence Gower has been generally relegated to an undeservedly inferior rank among poets. But in the "Cinkante Balades" at least he displays many true poetic qualities, and his art of telling a story in a natural way, as shown for example in the " Confessio Amantis", is by no means slender, and in some respects will stand comparison with Chaucer's admittedly great gifts as a narrator.

G. C. Macaulay in his edition of The Complete Works of John Gower (4 vols., Oxford, 1899-1901) has given elaborate intro- ductions, notes, and glossaries, and has discussed very fully and fairly many controverted points in connexion with Gower. This may be regarded as the standard edition. Besides the edi- tions already mentioned the following works may be consulted: Morley, English Writers, IV (London, 1893); Tait in Diet, Nat. Biog., s. v.; Easton, Readings in Gower (Boston, 1895); Stow, A Survey of London (ed. Morley. London); The Retro- spective Review and Historical and Antiquarian Magazine, 2nd scries, II (London, 1828); Todd, Illustrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer (London, 1810); Bale, Scripto- rum Ilhtstrium majoris Britannice, quam nunc Angliam et Scotiam vacant, Catalogus (Basle, 15.57); Leland, Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis (ed. Hall, 1709); Idem, Collectanea, ed. Heakne (1715); Idem, Itinerarium, ed. Heakne (1710-12); Fuller. The Worthies of England (London, 1662); Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, II (London, 1796).

P. J. Lennox.

Goya y Lucientes, Francisco Jose de, painter and etcher, b. in Fuendetodos, Aragon, Spain, 31 March, 1746; d. in Bordeaux, 16 April, 1S28. His father was a small landowner and could give only a meagre education to his son. It is more than prob- able that a monk of Santa F6 awakened the latent art in the boy; and certain it is that when fourteen, he painted frescoes in the Church of Fuendetodos, and a year later began regular art studies with Martinez. Going to Saragossa he entered the San Luis Academy, where for four or five years he worked under Luxan, and then went to Madrid. When only twenty years olfl, he left for Italy and worked his way to Rome as a bull-fighter. In Italy he painted little, yet he won a prize at Parma for a " Hannibal seeing Italy from the Alps ", and completed in a few hours a full-length por- trait of Pope Benedict XIV, now in the Vatican. On Goya's return to Spain (1775), Mengs was so impressed with his talents that he commissioned him to make sketches for the Prado and Escorial tapestries, and Goya was thereby brought into contact with the court, lived for the rest of his life among princes, and became the most brilliant member of the circle of Don Luis, the king's brother. He married (1775) Josefa, daugh- ter of Bayeu, painter to Charles III, by whom he had twenty children. Five small canvases (all in San Fernando) painted at this time are strikingly original in composition, and have a marvellous silvery quality rivalling that of Velasquez. In 1780 he was made a member of the Fernando Academy in recognition of his " Christ Crucified " (Prado) and his " St. Francis on the Mountain". He was now the acknowledged leader of the Spanish School, and well named the last of the old masters and the first of the new. He painted portraits with the greatest facility and rapidity — all marvellous resemblances — and over two hun-