William Langland and Piers Plowman

William Langland,Piers Plowman,The Canterbury Tales,Chaucer

 

William Langland and Piers Plowman

The name of William Langland has a celebrity in the English language for his singular work-The Book of Piers, the Plowman. In the English literature of the fourteenth century, Langland's Piers Plowman stands out as the most renowned work, save Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Whereas the latter is a social chronicle, with engaging tales, Piers Plowman is an impressive allegory, more deeply concerned with religious, ethical, social, and economic problems of the time. Piers Plowman is definitely a novel and radical work for his age. This is a provocative probe into the depth of the social and moral life of the age. Like Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, this remains a fine mirror of the variety and complexity of medieval life.

Like The Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman has a Prologue that has the typical dream convention of medieval literature. This describes how the author falls asleep on a May morning on the Malvern Hills. He has a vision of a fair field, full of folk from different ranks and occupations. This Prologue, as in Chaucer's Prologue, records a graphic picture of the English society of the fourteenth century. Social scenes, rather than Chaucer's social types, however, are more conspicuous in Langland's Prologue.

The framework of Langland's poem is allegorical. This describes a series of remarkable visions. The dreamer, that is the poet himself, has these visions in his dream. Langland's convictions of the moral faith and the social vices of his age find expression through these visions. His ethical point of view is quite clear here. His emphasis is on the supreme sermons of truth, work, and love. Man's chief task is to seek truth, to have faith to succeed in his work and love alone leads him to heaven. Piers Plowman stands in the pivotal position of the entire theme. He symbolizes the moral virtues of life – truth, work, and love. He remains the very object and inspiration for noble living.

Langland's Piers Plowman is a mighty achievement in the English literature of the fourteenth century. It ranks very high as a social study and a moral sermon. Its significance lies mainly in its threefold manifestation. First, it is a graphic picture of contemporary life and manners. Second, it is a penetrative satire on social and ecclesiastical follies and vices. Third, it is a powerful allegory of human life and morality. As a social picture, the poem throws interesting sidelights on medieval life, manners, and customs in different places and occupations. As a social satire, the poem stands out remarkably. This is, perhaps, the first great English satire. The poet is particularly quite critical of luxury and vices in high places, religious and secular. As an allegory, it brings out subtly the strife between good and evil in the human soul. The poet's emphasis is always on righteous living.

Piers Plowman also bears out Langland's radical view as a reformer. His reformative zeal is equally evident in his treatment of political, social, and ecclesiastical matters. He advocates social equality and equal social responsibility. He is found to emphasize a life of simplicity, sincerity, and restraint. Indeed, in him is heard the echoes of the impending Puritanism.

Langland's work is no exhibition of grand poetry of the Chaucerian height. In him is seen neither as an artist nor a musician. The poem is written in the old alliterative meter. But the handling of the alliterative line is always easy and confident, and as a result, Piers Plowman never appears as a poem monotonous or hard to read.