The Myth of Piers Plowman: Constructing a Medieval Literary ArchiveAddressing the history of the production and reception of the great medieval poem, Piers Plowman, Lawrence Warner reveals the many ways in which scholars, editors and critics over the centuries created their own speculative narratives about the poem, which gradually came to be regarded as factually true. Warner begins by considering the possibility that Langland wrote a romance about a werewolf and bear-suited lovers, and he goes on to explore the methods of the poem's localization, and medieval readers' particular interest in its Latinity. Warner shows that the 'Protestant Piers' was a reaction against the poem's oral mode of transmission, reveals the extensive eighteenth-century textual scholarship on the poem and contextualizes its first modernization. This lively account of Piers Plowman challenges the way the poem has traditionally been read and understood. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Books Online and via Knowledge Unlatched. |
Contents
the problem of William of Palerne | 22 |
Meed Corfe castle and | 37 |
Latinitas et communitas Visionis Willielmi de Langlond | 53 |
nonreformist prophecy c 15201555 | 72 |
the Spelman | 87 |
Piers Plowman in the age | 106 |
Lelands madness and the tale of Piers Plowman | 129 |
Notes | 141 |
| 187 | |
| 209 | |
Other editions - View all
The Myth of Piers Plowman: Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive Lawrence Warner Limited preview - 2014 |
The Myth of Piers Plowman: Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive Lawrence Warner No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
Alford Alliterative annotations appears authorship BL Additional Bodleian Library British Library Brynstan C-Text Cambridge Canterbury Canterbury Tales catalogue century Chandos portrait chapter Charlotte Brewer Chaucer cited collation collection copy critical Crowley Crowley’s D. S. Brewer Douce Douce’s Dupré Editing Piers Plowman editors England excerpt Galloway Gentleman’s George Kane gloss Harley Horobin Huntington identified inscribed John Joseph Ritson King’s Langland archive Latin Leland letters lines literary Literature London marginal Middle English monks Oxford P-group passage passus Penn Commentary Piers Plowman Electronic Piers Plowman Tradition Plowman Electronic Archive Plowman’s Tale poem’s poet poet’s Poetry printed prophecy quotations Rawlinson readers reading Richard Robert Robert Crowley Robert Langland Robert Southey Romance Russell and Kane says scholars scholarship scribes Shakespeare sixteenth-century Skeat Spelman Talbot Donaldson Taylor textual Thomas tradition translation University Press Urry Urry’s Vision William Langland William of Palerne Winchester Anthology Wright þat