Read Online The Columbia History of British Poetry by Carl Woodring, James Shapiro - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Carl Woodring, James Shapiro
Tags: test
Ads: Link
transiency:
And haves gud daye, for now I go; to grave moste me wende;
Dethe dynges one my dore, I dare no lengare byde.
(653654)
Death and Life survives only in a corrupt seventeenth-century manuscript, but it seems to belong with the other alliterative debate poems. It differs from the Parliament in that the splendidly specific alliterative vocabulary is used more truly allegorically: Lady Life is not just life-on-
Page 36
earth, although the grass turns green at her feet; she stands for eternal life, offered to humanity through the Crucifixion. If the alliterative poets usually lavished their verbal skill on the material realities of this world, the author of Death and Life , like the author of Pearl , shows that it can also be used to present a movingly specific "fiction" of salvation.
The long poem known as Piers Plowman by William Langland (a contemporary of Chaucer about whom almost nothing is known) is an exception to the other works in the alliterative tradition in several ways. It is written in alliterating long lines, but it does not, in the main, employ the elaborate and obscure vocabulary of now-obsolete dialect terms used by the other authors. Langland's work, like theirs, escapes easy generic classification; it has been variously characterized as a dream vision poem, a prophecy, homily, quest, social satire, allegory, and something closely related to the drama of the period. All of these characterizations are in some sense true. Nor is Langland so comfortable with his role as poet or author as the other alliterative poets; the uncertainty of role and voice gives rise to a host of technical problems unparalleled in medieval literature. Piers Plowman exists in three or perhaps four versions; there are many manuscripts, but none of them is particularly authoritative. Langland, whoever he was, rewrote his work obsessively, often obliterating the bits that modern critics are most fond of; the whole work has more of the status of work-in-progress than anything else in medieval literature. Progress is the essence of the poem, and it must only have been stopped, not concluded, by the author's death. Generations of scholars have worked on establishing a text, but any discussion of the poem must reckon with the work's essential fluidity.
In main outline the "events" of the poem follow the same course in all versions: the narrator of the opening lines falls asleep and dreams, but his dream pitches him into waking life: he sees a "field full of folk" all busily alive and pursuing their various callings. A lady, Holy Church, tells him of heaven and hell, and bids him seek for truth; the dreamer, failing to understand, asks for Truth and is shown falsehood, the lady called "Meed." An extended allegory shows Meed (bribery, reward) corrupting society, but suggests that she can be controlled by the king and Reason. Reason then extends the message of reform to society: a sermon is preached to the crowd and the seven deadly sins come forward to make their confession; the whole crowd then rush off to seek for Truth. They meet Piers the Plowmanan exceedingly enigmatic guide, who offers to show them the way; the way somehow turns out to
Page 37
be the same thing as the plowing of the half-acre of land Piers owns. What seems like an initially hopeful scene degenerates: the agricultural cycle turns out to be too much for many of the pilgrims, and Piers's control slips. Truth sends a pardon; Piers and a priest argue about its meaning. In the earlier versions of the poem Piers tears up the pardon in a rage and departs on his own; the dreamer wakes up.
The second half of the poem shows the dreamer pursuing the quest alone: he now wants to find truth, or Piers, or the mysterious "Do wel" mentioned by the pardon; his search occupies a series of dreams,
And haves gud daye, for now I go; to grave moste me wende;
Dethe dynges one my dore, I dare no lengare byde.
(653654)
Death and Life survives only in a corrupt seventeenth-century manuscript, but it seems to belong with the other alliterative debate poems. It differs from the Parliament in that the splendidly specific alliterative vocabulary is used more truly allegorically: Lady Life is not just life-on-
Page 36
earth, although the grass turns green at her feet; she stands for eternal life, offered to humanity through the Crucifixion. If the alliterative poets usually lavished their verbal skill on the material realities of this world, the author of Death and Life , like the author of Pearl , shows that it can also be used to present a movingly specific "fiction" of salvation.
The long poem known as Piers Plowman by William Langland (a contemporary of Chaucer about whom almost nothing is known) is an exception to the other works in the alliterative tradition in several ways. It is written in alliterating long lines, but it does not, in the main, employ the elaborate and obscure vocabulary of now-obsolete dialect terms used by the other authors. Langland's work, like theirs, escapes easy generic classification; it has been variously characterized as a dream vision poem, a prophecy, homily, quest, social satire, allegory, and something closely related to the drama of the period. All of these characterizations are in some sense true. Nor is Langland so comfortable with his role as poet or author as the other alliterative poets; the uncertainty of role and voice gives rise to a host of technical problems unparalleled in medieval literature. Piers Plowman exists in three or perhaps four versions; there are many manuscripts, but none of them is particularly authoritative. Langland, whoever he was, rewrote his work obsessively, often obliterating the bits that modern critics are most fond of; the whole work has more of the status of work-in-progress than anything else in medieval literature. Progress is the essence of the poem, and it must only have been stopped, not concluded, by the author's death. Generations of scholars have worked on establishing a text, but any discussion of the poem must reckon with the work's essential fluidity.
In main outline the "events" of the poem follow the same course in all versions: the narrator of the opening lines falls asleep and dreams, but his dream pitches him into waking life: he sees a "field full of folk" all busily alive and pursuing their various callings. A lady, Holy Church, tells him of heaven and hell, and bids him seek for truth; the dreamer, failing to understand, asks for Truth and is shown falsehood, the lady called "Meed." An extended allegory shows Meed (bribery, reward) corrupting society, but suggests that she can be controlled by the king and Reason. Reason then extends the message of reform to society: a sermon is preached to the crowd and the seven deadly sins come forward to make their confession; the whole crowd then rush off to seek for Truth. They meet Piers the Plowmanan exceedingly enigmatic guide, who offers to show them the way; the way somehow turns out to
Page 37
be the same thing as the plowing of the half-acre of land Piers owns. What seems like an initially hopeful scene degenerates: the agricultural cycle turns out to be too much for many of the pilgrims, and Piers's control slips. Truth sends a pardon; Piers and a priest argue about its meaning. In the earlier versions of the poem Piers tears up the pardon in a rage and departs on his own; the dreamer wakes up.
The second half of the poem shows the dreamer pursuing the quest alone: he now wants to find truth, or Piers, or the mysterious "Do wel" mentioned by the pardon; his search occupies a series of dreams,
Similar Books
