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Astonishing in its cultural and theological scope, William Langland's iconoclastic masterpiece is at once a historical relic and a deeply spiritual vision, probing not only the social and religious aristocracy but also the day-to-day realities of a largely voiceless proletariat... Read Full Overview

Written by a fourteenth-century cleric, this spiritual allegory explores man in relation to his ultimate destiny against the background of teeming, colorful medieval life.

Written by a fourteenth-century cleric, this spiritual allegory explores man in relation to his ultimate destiny against the background of teeming, colorful medieval life.

Written by a fourteenth-century cleric this spiritual allegory explores man in relation to his ultimate destiny against the background of teeming colorful medieval life.

William Langland's 14th-century poem Piers Plowman, a disturbing and often humorous commentary on corruption and greed, remains meaningful today. The allegorical work revolves around the narrator's quest to live a good life, and takes the form of a series of dreams... Read Full Overview

The translator of this work was a founding editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

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... Read Full Overview

Notes by the translator and an introduction by Nevil Coghill supplement this handsomely produced version of the masterpiece of social protest literature in the Middle Ages.

Piers Plowman, William Langland's visionary medieval work about one man's quest for the true Christian life, is an allegorical journey through dream visions and visions within dreams. During the course of his journey, the narrator (William Langland) meets Piers Plowman, who gradually... Read Full Overview

Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.

The Vision and the Creed of Piers Ploughman is a medieval allegorical poem that critiques the social and religious institutions of its time. This edition includes extensive notes and a glossary by Thomas Wright that help modern readers understand the poem's language and references.

This... Read Full Overview