Piers Plowman Tradition

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Resources

Inspired largely by William Langland's poem,

Piers Plowman

, at least fourteen other texts written over the course of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries feature Piers the Ploughman and/or other characters from the poem. Although there may have been a tradition preceding Langland, his twelve-book poem (written approximately 1360-87) is the most influential of these texts. Set initially in the Malvern hills, it is narrated by a character named Will, who falls asleep and has a vision of a mythical landscape, in which he meets Piers, the humble ploughman, who is attributed Christ-like characteristics. The poem proceeds in the form of a quest for the true Christian life, focused on a search for three characters: Dowel (Do Well), Dobet (Do Better) and Dobest (Do Best). As the tradition…

190 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Piers Plowman Tradition". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 July 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=864, accessed 19 March 2024.]

864 Piers Plowman Tradition 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.