Piers Plowman (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)

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.