{"product_id":"the-work-of-reform-literature-and-political-ecology-from-langland-to-spenser-paperback-softback-9781501783258","title":"The Work of Reform; Literature and Political Ecology from Langland to Spenser (Paperback \/ softback) 9781501783258","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eThe Work of Reform\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eLiterature and Political Ecology from Langland to Spenser\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eWilliam Rhodes (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781501783258\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 15 September 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e246 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.454 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Work of Reform\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e interweaves literary, economic, and environmental history to trace the influence that William Langland's harsh vision of enforced agrarian labor in \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePiers Plowman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e had on later medieval and early modern thinking about land and improvement in Britain and Ireland, culminating with Edmund Spenser's colonial writing.\u003c\/b\u003e William Rhodes brings together a rich poetic archive with agrarian husbandry manuals, prose polemics, and imperial tracts to connect conflicts over land and labor on the English manor to those of Tudor Ireland, offering a new eco-Marxist literary history of ecological transformation across the medieval-modern divide. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the aftermath of the Black Death, the depopulation of the countryside, and the beginnings of the Enclosure Movement, English poets imagined enforced labor as a panacea for social unrest precipitated by environmental catastrophe. Arguing that \u003ci\u003ePiers Plowman\u003c\/i\u003e established how poetry could envision religious and economic transformation based on agrarian production, \u003ci\u003eThe Work of Reform\u003c\/i\u003e reveals that the \u003ci\u003ePiers Plowman\u003c\/i\u003e tradition's valorization of agrarian toil was open to appropriation by later writers developing totalizing, top-down colonialist projects.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction: Political Ecology and Literary History from Langland to Spenser\u003cbr\u003e1. Manorial Political Ecology and Passus 6 of Piers Plowman\u003cbr\u003e2. Ecologies of Anti-fraternalism in the Piers Plowman Tradition\u003cbr\u003e3. The Drone and the Sovereign: Labor and Consumption in Mum and the Sothsegger\u003cbr\u003e4. The Political Ecology of Primitive Accumulation in English Reformation Literature\u003cbr\u003e5. Why Colin Clout Came to Ireland: The Piers Plowman Tradition and Spenser's Late Pastorals\u003cbr\u003e6. Colonial Political Ecology and A View of the Present State of Ireland\u003cbr\u003eConclusion\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52676665377048,"sku":"9781501783258","price":24.37,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/the-work-of-reform-literature-and-political-ecology-from-langland-to-spenser-paperback-softback-9781501783258","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}