The Myth of Piers Plowman
Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive

A revisionary account of the powerful myths that grew up around the production and reception of the great medieval poem. Also available as Open Access.

Lawrence Warner (Author)

9781107665514, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 March 2017

242 pages, 16 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.36 kg

'A rollicking tale of how an entire field of study came to be created, or rather, fabricated … Warner's book is full of page-turning discoveries.' The Times Literary Supplement

Addressing 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.

Introduction: archive fever and the madness of Joseph Ritson
1. William and the werewolf: the problem of William of Palerne
2. Localizing Piers Plowman C: Meed, Corfe Castle, and the London Riot of 1384
3. Latinitas et Communitas Visionis Willielmi de Longlond
4. Quod Piers Plowman: non-Reformist prophecy, c.1520–55
5. Urry, Burrell, and the pains of John Taylor: the Spelman MS (Huntington Hm 114), 1709–66
6. William Dupré, Fabricateur: Piers Plowman in the Age of Forgery
Conclusion: Leland's madness and the tale of Piers Plowman
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]