Author: Andrew Galloway
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812202007
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 507
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 1
Author: Andrew Galloway
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812202007
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 507
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812202007
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 507
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 1
Author: Andrew Galloway
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812239225
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"A work of enormous importance. Of all the poems of the English Middle Ages, Piers Plowman is the one that most deserves and needs annotation of the fullest and best possible kind, both because it is a text of unrivaled literary quality and interest, and because it is characteristically knotty and deploys a language of unusual richness, density, and allusiveness. Much of this allusiveness is to areas of learning that are not at every modern reader's fingertips. A particular difficulty is the existence of the poem in three authorial versions of almost desperate complexity. It will be an immense triumph to have a commentary which elucidates their relationships as a matter of policy and not simply as the result of conflating annotation on the different versions."—Derek Pearsall The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes. The detailed and wide-ranging Penn Commentary places the allegorical dream-vision of Piers Plowman within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the poem, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the poem's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement in its social world is unrivaled in English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Andrew Galloway's Volume 1 treats the poem's first vision, from the Prologue through Passus 4, in all three versions, accepting the C text as the poet's final word but excavating downward through the earlier B and A texts. Stephen Barney's volume completes the framework for the commentary, dealing with the final three passûs of the poem, extant only in the B and C versions. Subsequent volumes will be the work of Ralph Hanna, Traugott Lawler, and Anne Middleton. Overall, The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman marks a new stage of concentrated yet wide-ranging attention to a text whose repeated revisions and literary and intellectual complexity make it both an elusive object of inquiry and a literary work whose richness has long deserved the capacious and minutely detailed treatment that only a full commentary can allow. Perhaps no poem in English appeals more than Piers Plowman to those readers who understand Yeats's "fascination with things difficult," yet The Penn Commentary will enable generations of readers to share in the pleasures and challenges of experiencing, engaging with, and trying to elucidate the difficulties of one of the towering achievements of English literature. Andrew Galloway is Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Cornell University.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812239225
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"A work of enormous importance. Of all the poems of the English Middle Ages, Piers Plowman is the one that most deserves and needs annotation of the fullest and best possible kind, both because it is a text of unrivaled literary quality and interest, and because it is characteristically knotty and deploys a language of unusual richness, density, and allusiveness. Much of this allusiveness is to areas of learning that are not at every modern reader's fingertips. A particular difficulty is the existence of the poem in three authorial versions of almost desperate complexity. It will be an immense triumph to have a commentary which elucidates their relationships as a matter of policy and not simply as the result of conflating annotation on the different versions."—Derek Pearsall The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes. The detailed and wide-ranging Penn Commentary places the allegorical dream-vision of Piers Plowman within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the poem, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the poem's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement in its social world is unrivaled in English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Andrew Galloway's Volume 1 treats the poem's first vision, from the Prologue through Passus 4, in all three versions, accepting the C text as the poet's final word but excavating downward through the earlier B and A texts. Stephen Barney's volume completes the framework for the commentary, dealing with the final three passûs of the poem, extant only in the B and C versions. Subsequent volumes will be the work of Ralph Hanna, Traugott Lawler, and Anne Middleton. Overall, The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman marks a new stage of concentrated yet wide-ranging attention to a text whose repeated revisions and literary and intellectual complexity make it both an elusive object of inquiry and a literary work whose richness has long deserved the capacious and minutely detailed treatment that only a full commentary can allow. Perhaps no poem in English appeals more than Piers Plowman to those readers who understand Yeats's "fascination with things difficult," yet The Penn Commentary will enable generations of readers to share in the pleasures and challenges of experiencing, engaging with, and trying to elucidate the difficulties of one of the towering achievements of English literature. Andrew Galloway is Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Cornell University.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 5
Author: Stephen A. Barney
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812201191
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes. The detailed and wide-ranging Penn Commentary places the allegorical dream-vision of Piers Plowman within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the poem, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the poem's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement in its social world is unrivaled in English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Andrew Galloway's Volume 1 treats the poem's first vision, from the Prologue through Passus 4, in all three versions, accepting the C text as the poet's final word but excavating downward through the earlier B and A texts. Stephen Barney's volume completes the framework for the commentary, dealing with the final three passûs of the poem, extant only in the B and C versions. Subsequent volumes will be the work of Ralph Hanna, Traugott Lawler, and Anne Middleton. Overall, The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman marks a new stage of concentrated yet wide-ranging attention to a text whose repeated revisions and literary and intellectual complexity make it both an elusive object of inquiry and a literary work whose richness has long deserved the capacious and minutely detailed treatment that only a full commentary can allow. Perhaps no poem in English appeals more than Piers Plowman to those readers who understand Yeats's "fascination with things difficult," yet The Penn Commentary will enable generations of readers to share in the pleasures and challenges of experiencing, engaging with, and trying to elucidate the difficulties of one of the towering achievements of English literature.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812201191
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century is inaugurated with the publication of the first two of its five projected volumes. The detailed and wide-ranging Penn Commentary places the allegorical dream-vision of Piers Plowman within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the poem, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the poem's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement in its social world is unrivaled in English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Andrew Galloway's Volume 1 treats the poem's first vision, from the Prologue through Passus 4, in all three versions, accepting the C text as the poet's final word but excavating downward through the earlier B and A texts. Stephen Barney's volume completes the framework for the commentary, dealing with the final three passûs of the poem, extant only in the B and C versions. Subsequent volumes will be the work of Ralph Hanna, Traugott Lawler, and Anne Middleton. Overall, The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman marks a new stage of concentrated yet wide-ranging attention to a text whose repeated revisions and literary and intellectual complexity make it both an elusive object of inquiry and a literary work whose richness has long deserved the capacious and minutely detailed treatment that only a full commentary can allow. Perhaps no poem in English appeals more than Piers Plowman to those readers who understand Yeats's "fascination with things difficult," yet The Penn Commentary will enable generations of readers to share in the pleasures and challenges of experiencing, engaging with, and trying to elucidate the difficulties of one of the towering achievements of English literature.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 2
Author: Ralph Hanna
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812293835
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century, the Penn Commentary places the allegorical dream-vision of Piers Plowman within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the poem, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the work's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement with its social world is unrivaled in medieval English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Volume 2, by Ralph Hanna, deliberately addresses the question of the poem's perceived "difficulty," by indicating the legitimate areas of unresolved dilemmas, while offering often original explanations of a variety of textual loci. Perhaps more important, his commentary indicates what has not always appeared clear in past approaches—that the poem only "means" in its totality and within some critical framework, and that its annotation needs always to be guided by a sense of Langland's developing arguments.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812293835
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
The first full commentary on Piers Plowman since the late nineteenth century, the Penn Commentary places the allegorical dream-vision of Piers Plowman within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the poem, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the work's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement with its social world is unrivaled in medieval English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Volume 2, by Ralph Hanna, deliberately addresses the question of the poem's perceived "difficulty," by indicating the legitimate areas of unresolved dilemmas, while offering often original explanations of a variety of textual loci. Perhaps more important, his commentary indicates what has not always appeared clear in past approaches—that the poem only "means" in its totality and within some critical framework, and that its annotation needs always to be guided by a sense of Langland's developing arguments.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 4
Author: Traugott Lawler
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295129
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 516
Book Description
The detailed and wide-ranging Penn Commentary on "Piers Plowman" places the allegorical dream-vision of the poem within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the work, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the poem's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement with its social world is unrivaled in English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Covering passūs C.15-19 and B.13-17, Volume 4 of the Penn Commentary on "Piers Plowman" creates a complete vade mecum for readers, identifying and translating all Latin quotations, uncovering allusions, providing full cross-reference to other parts of the poem, drawing in relevant scholarship, and unraveling difficult passages. Like the other commentaries in the series, this volume contains an extensive overview and analysis of each passus, and the subdivisions within, large and small, and discusses all differences between the two versions. It pays careful attention to the poem at the literal level as well as to Latin texts that are analogues or even possible sources of Langland's thought and it emphasizes the comedy of the poem, of which these passūs offer a number of examples.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295129
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 516
Book Description
The detailed and wide-ranging Penn Commentary on "Piers Plowman" places the allegorical dream-vision of the poem within the literary, historical, social, and intellectual contexts of late medieval England, and within the long history of critical interpretation of the work, assessing past scholarship while offering original materials and insights throughout. The authors' line-by-line, section by section, and passus by passus commentary on all three versions of the poem and on the stages of its multiple revisions reveals new aspects of the poem's meaning while assessing and summarizing a complex and often divisive scholarly tradition. The volumes offer an up-to-date, original, and open-ended guide to a poem whose engagement with its social world is unrivaled in English literature, and whose literary, religious, and intellectual accomplishments are uniquely powerful. The Penn Commentary is designed to be equally useful to readers of the A, B, or C texts of the poem. It is geared to readers eager to have detailed experience of Piers Plowman and other medieval literature, possessing some basic knowledge of Middle English language and literature, and interested in pondering further the particularly difficult relationships to both that this poem possesses. Others, with interest in poetry of all periods, will find the extended and detailed commentary useful precisely because it does not seek to avoid the poem's challenges but seeks instead to provoke thought about its intricacy and poetic achievements. Covering passūs C.15-19 and B.13-17, Volume 4 of the Penn Commentary on "Piers Plowman" creates a complete vade mecum for readers, identifying and translating all Latin quotations, uncovering allusions, providing full cross-reference to other parts of the poem, drawing in relevant scholarship, and unraveling difficult passages. Like the other commentaries in the series, this volume contains an extensive overview and analysis of each passus, and the subdivisions within, large and small, and discusses all differences between the two versions. It pays careful attention to the poem at the literal level as well as to Latin texts that are analogues or even possible sources of Langland's thought and it emphasizes the comedy of the poem, of which these passūs offer a number of examples.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 2
Author: Andrew Galloway
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812248910
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 2, by Ralph Hanna, deliberately addresses the question of the poem's perceived "difficulty," by indicating the legitimate areas of unresolved dilemmas, while offering often original explanations of a variety of textual loci.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812248910
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 2, by Ralph Hanna, deliberately addresses the question of the poem's perceived "difficulty," by indicating the legitimate areas of unresolved dilemmas, while offering often original explanations of a variety of textual loci.
The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 4
Author: Andrew Galloway
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812250265
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 520
Book Description
Volume 4, by Traugott Lawler, creates a complete vade mecum for readers, identifying and translating all Latin quotations, uncovering allusions, providing full cross-reference to other parts of the poem, drawing in relevant scholarship, discussing all differences between the B and C texts, and unraveling difficult passages.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812250265
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 520
Book Description
Volume 4, by Traugott Lawler, creates a complete vade mecum for readers, identifying and translating all Latin quotations, uncovering allusions, providing full cross-reference to other parts of the poem, drawing in relevant scholarship, discussing all differences between the B and C texts, and unraveling difficult passages.
The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman
Author: Andrew Cole
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139867326
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Piers Plowman has long been considered one of the greatest poems of medieval England. Current scholarship on this alliterative masterpiece looks very different from that available even a decade ago. New information about the manuscripts of the poem, new historical discoveries, and new investigations of its literary, cultural and theoretical scope have fundamentally altered the very meaning of Langland's art. This Companion thus critically surveys traditional scholarship, with the aim of recuperating its best insights, and it ventures forth into newer areas of inquiry attuned to questions of social setting, institutional context, intellectual and literary history, theory, and the revitalized fields of codicology and paleography. By proceeding through chapters that offer cumulatively wider views as well as stand-alone analyses of topics most crucial to understanding Piers Plowman, this Companion gives serious students and seasoned scholars alike up-to-date knowledge of this intricate and beautiful poem.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139867326
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Piers Plowman has long been considered one of the greatest poems of medieval England. Current scholarship on this alliterative masterpiece looks very different from that available even a decade ago. New information about the manuscripts of the poem, new historical discoveries, and new investigations of its literary, cultural and theoretical scope have fundamentally altered the very meaning of Langland's art. This Companion thus critically surveys traditional scholarship, with the aim of recuperating its best insights, and it ventures forth into newer areas of inquiry attuned to questions of social setting, institutional context, intellectual and literary history, theory, and the revitalized fields of codicology and paleography. By proceeding through chapters that offer cumulatively wider views as well as stand-alone analyses of topics most crucial to understanding Piers Plowman, this Companion gives serious students and seasoned scholars alike up-to-date knowledge of this intricate and beautiful poem.
The Philosophy of Piers Plowman
Author: David Strong
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319519816
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
This book examines William Langland’s late medieval poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, in light of contemporary intellectual thought. David Strong argues that where the philosophers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham revolutionize the view of human potential through their theories of epistemology, ethics, and freedom of the will, Langland vivifies these ideas by contextualizing them in an individual’s search for truth and love. Specifically, the text ponders the intersection between reason and the will in expressing love. While scholars have consistently noted the text’s indebtedness to these higher strains of thought, this is the first book-length study in over thirty years that explores the depth of this interconnection, and the only one that considers the salience of both Scotus and Ockham. It is essential reading for medieval literary specialists and students as well as any cultural historian who desires to augment their knowledge of truth and love.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319519816
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
This book examines William Langland’s late medieval poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, in light of contemporary intellectual thought. David Strong argues that where the philosophers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham revolutionize the view of human potential through their theories of epistemology, ethics, and freedom of the will, Langland vivifies these ideas by contextualizing them in an individual’s search for truth and love. Specifically, the text ponders the intersection between reason and the will in expressing love. While scholars have consistently noted the text’s indebtedness to these higher strains of thought, this is the first book-length study in over thirty years that explores the depth of this interconnection, and the only one that considers the salience of both Scotus and Ockham. It is essential reading for medieval literary specialists and students as well as any cultural historian who desires to augment their knowledge of truth and love.
Approaches to Teaching Langland's Piers Plowman
Author: Thomas A. Goodmann
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 1603293418
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
A series of dream visions, Piers Plowman is a moral reckoning of the whole of medieval England, in which every part of society--from church and king to every sort of "folk"--is considered in the light of the narrator's interpretation of Christian revelation. The Middle English poem, rich and beautiful, is a particular challenge to teach: it exists in three versions, lacks a continuous narrative, is written in a West Midlands dialect, weaves a complex allegory, and treats complicated social and political issues, such as labor, Lollardy, and popular uprising. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," discusses the different versions, critical and classroom editions, and translations of the poem, as well as the many secondary sources. Part 2, "Approaches," helps students engage with the poem's versification, understand its protagonist and its treatment of poverty and equity, and discern connections to the work of other medieval poets, such as Dante and Chaucer.
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 1603293418
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
A series of dream visions, Piers Plowman is a moral reckoning of the whole of medieval England, in which every part of society--from church and king to every sort of "folk"--is considered in the light of the narrator's interpretation of Christian revelation. The Middle English poem, rich and beautiful, is a particular challenge to teach: it exists in three versions, lacks a continuous narrative, is written in a West Midlands dialect, weaves a complex allegory, and treats complicated social and political issues, such as labor, Lollardy, and popular uprising. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," discusses the different versions, critical and classroom editions, and translations of the poem, as well as the many secondary sources. Part 2, "Approaches," helps students engage with the poem's versification, understand its protagonist and its treatment of poverty and equity, and discern connections to the work of other medieval poets, such as Dante and Chaucer.