Piers Plowman - Softcover

Langland, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1840221038 ISBN 13: 9781840221039

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1999

Synopsis

Langland's Piers Plowman is one of the strangest and one of the greatest poems of the Middle Ages. As spiritual allegory and social satire, it is not comparable with any other poem. Its chain of dream visions relates not only to the practical problems of medieval life, but also to the whole gamut of Christian attitudes towards God. Langland is sometimes plain and forthright, sometimes clumsy and obscure, but these limitations are utterly outweighed by his gifts for both comedy and lyricism and by moments of real sublimity. The poem survives in at least three versions. Terence Tiller's verse translation of the B-text is based on his abridgement of the poem for radio in 1980. Himself a poet, Tiller vividly conveys the colloquial immediacy and spiritual intensity of Langland's alliterative verse. Priscilla Martin has added the translation of the 'autobiographical episode' from the C-text.

About this title

From the Back Cover

E. Talbot Donaldson wrote in his first book on Piers Plowman that Langland 'in his emphasis on the individual...was in advance of his own church and of his own nation--and, indeed, of himself.' Paradoxically, as Donaldson also recognized, Langland was 'a political and religious moderate' whose cast of mind was 'conservative and traditionalist.' The poem that resulted from this curious paradox presents one of the great enigmas of all English poetry, as well as one of the major works of the Middle Ages.

About the Author

E. Talbot Donaldson was Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University. His books include Piers Plowman: The C-Text and Its Poets, Chaucer s Poetry: An Anthology for the Modern Reader, and, with George Kane, the definitive edition of Piers Plowman: The B Version. He was a founding editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1840221038
• ISBN 13: 9781840221039
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304