Publisher's Synopsis
"Piers Plowman" by William Langland was written in the 14th century and is a very complex poem, which this book attempts to explain and elucidate.;The approach reflects Godden's own feelings that one cannot hope to understand the poem without trying to comprehend the ways in which it developed and altered over many years and, still more, the ways in which the author's thinking developed. Godden sees the poem as a record of the poet's own story and its most striking moments as reflecting major shifts in the poet's thinking. Since the main evidence for the developments is the poem itself in its various versions, the analysis depends, in large part, on a critical interpretation of the poetry, especially the B version.
