Read complete books and articles on: William Langland

Langland, William - c.1332–c.1400, putative author of Piers Plowman. He was born probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marshes and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor orders he never became a priest. Later in London he apparently eked out his living by singing masses and copying documents. His great work, Piers Plowman, or, more precisely, The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, is an allegorical poem in unrhymed alliterative verse, regarded as the greatest Middle English poem prior to Chaucer. It is both a social satire and a vision of the simple Christian life. The poem consists of three dream visions: (1) in which Holy Church and Lady Meed (representing the temptation of riches) woo the dreamer; (2) in which Piers leads a crowd of penitents in search of St. Truth; and (3) the vision of Do-well (the practice of the virtues), Do-bet (in which Piers becomes the Good Samaritan practicing charity), and Do-best (in which the simple plowman is identified with Jesus himself). The 47 extant manuscripts of the poem fall into three groups: the A-text (2,567 lines, c.1362); the B-text, which greatly expands the third vision (7,242 lines, c.1376–77); the C-text, a revision of B (7,357 lines, between 1393 and 1398). Most scholars now believe that at least the A- and B-texts are the work of William Langland, whose biography has been deduced from passages in the poem. However, some still hold that the poem is the work of two or even five authors. The popularity of the poem is attested to by the large number of surviving manuscripts and by its many imitators. The 19th-century edition of W. W. Skeat (new ed. 1954) is still standard; the best modern versions are those of Donald Attwater (1930) and H. W. Wells (1935).

See studies by E. T. Donaldson (1955; and 1949, repr. 1966), M. W. Bloomfield (1962), E. D. Kirk (1972), J. M. Bowers (1986), and A. V. Schmidt (1987); critical writings, ed. by S. S. Hussey (1969).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: William Langland

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1.

The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland, and Chaucer » Read Now
by Julia Bolton Holloway. 330 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...1321. Divina commedia. 4. Langland, William, 1330?-1400? Piers the Plowman. 5. Chaucer...which Dante Alighieri Commedia , William Langland Piers Plowman and...
2.

The Vision of Piers Plowman, Newly Rendered into Modern English » Read Now
by William Langland, Henry W. Wells. 304 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...THE VISION OF PIERS PLOWMAN WILLIAM LANGLAND THE VISION OF PIERS...fifteenth century, assigns it to William Langland, but this attribution tells...for it is not certainly...
3.

Reading Piers Plowman and the Pilgrim's Progress: Reception and the Protestant Reader » Read Now
by Barbara A. Johnson. 320 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...references and index. 1. Langland, William, 1330?-1400? Piers the Plowman. 2...ANSI Z39.48-1984. + To Wallace E. Williams 1926-1990 Contents Acknowledgments...book itself...
4.

The England of Piers Plowman: William Langland and His Vision of the Fourteenth Century » Read Now
by F. R. H. Du Boulay. 147 pgs.

Collections: History, Literature, Entire Library

Professor Du Boulay's book is both a highly readable introduction to Langland's work and an original contribution to the history of religious thought. It rejects the view that Langland was primarily a political radical or a prophet of doom and sees him as both a great imaginative poet and a preacher...
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Professor Du Boulay's book is both a highly readable introduction to Langland's work and an original contribution to the history of religious thought. It rejects the view that Langland was primarily a political radical or a prophet of doom and sees him as both a great imaginative poet and a preacher of Christian charity. Writing in an age of intellectual subtlety and shifting social frontiers, Langland expressed deep anxieties yet offered to his fellow-Christians a way of interior repentance and practical love, guided by the enigmatic figure of Piers.
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5.

Langland's 'Corlew': Another Look at 'Piers Plowman' B xiv.43, in Medium Aevum » Read Now
by Alan Spearman. 17 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...English University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NOTES (1)William Langland, Piers Plowman: the B Version, ed. by George Kane...outstanding for its fine texture (p. 154)...
6.

Essays on Ricardian Literature in Honour of J.A. Burrow (includes "Looking for a Sign: The Quest for Nominalism in Chaucer and Langland") » Read Now
by A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse, Thorlac C. Turville-Petre. 362 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Essays on Ricardian Literature develops issues and themes first broached in John Burrow's ground-breaking book Ricardian Poetry and incorporates a bibliography of his published writings, which have revolutionized critical appreciation of medieval literature. The contributors to this volume, all...
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Essays on Ricardian Literature develops issues and themes first broached in John Burrow's ground-breaking book Ricardian Poetry and incorporates a bibliography of his published writings, which have revolutionized critical appreciation of medieval literature. The contributors to this volume, all leading scholars in the field, explore such areas as the status of Anglo-Latin and the influence of French culture on the Ricardian court, offer radical rereadings of some more familiar works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Patience, and demonstrate how closely the literature of the period is bound up with political and social conditions. Written in honour of John Burrow, to mark his deep and beneficial influence upon the study of medieval literature, the 15 essays in this volume combine to provide a detailed and thorough examination of medieval literature, from the Middle English romance and Italian Trecento poetics to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Langland's Piers Plowman.
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7.

Studies in Medieval Literature: In Honor of Professor Albert Croll Baugh (includes "Wyclif, Langland, Gower, and the Pearl Poet on the Subject of Aristocracy") » Read Now
by Macedward Leach. 346 pgs.

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...Editorial Committee Frederick L. Jones William H. Marshall Harold S. Stine MacEdward...Professor Felix E. Schelling, was William Haughtons Englishmen for My Money...
8.

A Critical History of English Poetry (includes "Chaucer, Gower, and Langland") » Read Now
by Herbert J. C. Grierson, J. C. Smith. 598 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...The authors of Piers Plowman and William of Palerme were both Shropshire men...attached to any of the cycles, such as William of Palerme , a pleasant homely story...side of...
9.

English Satire and Satirists (includes "Langland and Chaucer") » Read Now
by Hugh Walker. 325 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...to the author of Piers Plowman -- William Langland. Langland, then, chose a dream...successor in the roll of Scottish poets, William Dunbar 1465?-1530? , had reached...
10.

Poets & Their Art (includes "Chaucer and Langland") » Read Now
by Harriet Monroe. 308 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...summer in Cornish, New Hampshire, that William Vaughn Moody introduced me to his friend...that the response should be General William Booth Enters into Heaven , a poem...
11.

Allegorical Buildings in Mediaeval Literature, in Medium Aevum » Read Now
by Jill Mann. 20 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Kipling for reading this paper in typescript and sending me a copy of his article. (32)Chronicles of Edward I and II, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series (London, 1882), p...