The Vision of Piers Plowman
Langland's fourteenth-century alliterative dream vision in Wright's Middle English text, Volume 1.
What this poem is
Piers Plowman (written c. 1370–86; possibly c. 1377) or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman (William's Vision of Piers Plowman) is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed, alliterative verse divided into sections called passus (Latin for "step").
Like the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages, preceding and even influencing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Piers Plowman contains the first known reference to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales.
Three distinct versions of the poem exist, which scholars refer to as the A-, B-, and C-texts. The B-text is the most widely edited and translated version; it revises and extends the A-text by over 4000 lines.
The poem, a mix of theological allegory and social satire, concerns the narrator/dreamer's quest for the true Christian life in the context of medieval Catholicism. This journey takes place within a series of dream visions; the dreamer seeks, among other things, the allegorical characters Dowel ("Do-Well"), Dobet ("Do-Better"), and Dobest ("Do-Best"). The poem is divided into passus ('steps'), the divisions between which vary by version.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article “Piers Plowman” (revision 1362071658), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Laurel's own notes and measurements are not from Wikipedia.
Measured across the book
Across its 8,898 lines, 98% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 97% to 98%). Alliteration runs at 2.41 times what shuffling the words would give (0.11 observed against 0.04 expected). 18% of the lines have a feminine ending.
Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.
Contents
About this text
Public domain. Text from The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman, Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #43660. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.