In reading Passus 7 and Passus 18, I am reminded of the use of plowmen in medieval literature. Like Langland, Chaucer uses a plowman to represent one of the good guys in his Canterbury Tales. Perhaps it is the assumption that a plowman works hard, is diligent, honest and relatable that makes him a suitable candidate for representing a “good” character in a story. Langland uses the plowman in an especially interesting way. In Passus 18, I got the sense that Piers the Plowman is intended to be a Christ-like figure. Passus 18 gives a detailed and recognizable story of Christ riding into Jerusalem and His crucifixion. Both stories are seen in the Bible, but Langland goes into less detail than we originally get in the Bible, and instead spends a lot of time focusing on the Harrowing of Hell, a story not depicted in the Bible but still well known. During his dream at the beginning of Passus 18, Will witnesses “Someone resembling the Samaritan, and somewhat Piers the Plowman” riding into Jerusalem (10-11). Faith explains to Will that “This Jesus will joust in Piers’s arms, In his helmet and his mail coat, human nature” (22-23). I had a difficult time knowing exactly what Faith means in this explanation, and I took it to mean one of two things: either Jesus is wearing a disguise of Piers while he jousts in Jerusalem, or Piers himself is acting as a stand-in for Jesus. Either way, it seems that Langland is using Piers in close reference with Christ, and Piers is intended to be understood as a Christ figure who helps guide Will through his theological allegory, in search of what it means to live a good Christian life.

Thus far in the semester, dream visions seem to hold a really prominent place in Middle English Literature. The dream vision is supposed to be a recounting of what the author may have seen in a dream or vision and how it applies to their waking life. This is not so different from my own experience with dreams before taking this class. I am really fascinated by them and every time I have a pretty vivid one, I tend to do research on various symbols that stick out to me and that I can remember the next morning (a great site for this is http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/). I like to piece the various symbolic meanings in my dream together in order to make sense of the storyline and how it make sense to me personally. For example, a common dream that people tend to have involves death, which can symbolize either the end of something or a rebirth in their waking life. In other words, the dream is supposed to be representative in some way to the author/ person’s personal perspective and what they see in the world/ the waking life.

I guess what piques my interest about this mostly relates back to the author itself and is moreso a question I’ve been thinking about than anything else. If the dreams that we have are reflective of our own lives, how much of these Middle English dream visions are associated with the author’s own personal life? For instance, how much of Piers Plowman is directly from the author’s own experience? And if it is only a dream that they’ve had recounted, what of that dream applies to their own perspective of the world?

When a writer personifies a certain abstract idea they rarely give it a literal body, Piers Plowman does. However they are not physical in predictable ways: one might think that gluttony wold be depicted as an over gorged lord (as is often the depiction), but the the writer choses to challenge the audience by making these sins physical. Envy comes forth and describes himself as thin, he says “I haven’t been able to eat, for many years, as a man ought to do, Because envy and bad feeling are hard to digest.”(120-1) Personally I’ve never thought of envy in this way but the implication is crystal clear. Envy makes one endlessly hungry because an envious individual cannot sustain himself of his own accomplishment.The author does not offer a literal translation of the sin as we might (he was pea green with envy). Rather the sin becomes a physical ailment, a disease, symptom.

Likewise, “Wrath wakes up with two white eyes,” as if he is blind. Strangely Wrath is so physical that he can walk among friars and priests; he even has an aunt who was once a nun, he works in the kitchen. Wrath is not separate from humanity as so many others, even Envy seems to stand aside and covet. Wrath walks among man he says “I, Wrath, never rest/ But follow these wicked folk, for such is my lot.” (150-1) Wrath is a servant with white eyes. He has no leadership no agency. Yet we often think of anger as a powerful and self assured sin. We do not think of anger as a servant.

Essentially, my point is that these poems use personification to humanize and complicate sins. Repentance is in real conversation with sin. The poem feels remarkably human.

It wasn’t until near the end of Passus 7 that I got a clear picture of the way Piers Plowman reprimanded certain practices of the Church. My first hint came from lines 110-112:

“And it was written as follows, in witness of Truth: “Those who have done well shall go into eternal life; Those (who have done) evil (shall go) into eternal fire.”

While on this surface this might seem a simple statement- good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell- I believe it carried connotations that were actually revolutionary to this period. If people could reach heaven by simply being good people, what need was there for an authoritative clergy? And what of the whole business of buying pardons for sins? You could be a terrible person, but if you were a terrible rich person you could potentially just buy your way out of any pile of bad behavior. And what constituted bad behavior? Was it only violating the laws and guidelines set out by the Bible itself, or were there additional restrictions that the Church decided to be “bad behavior”? Piers Plowman does not seem to want to do away with pardons and the Church entirely, it just seems to be pushing against the idea that money can overtake action as the primary means of getting to heaven. Lines 180-195 present the moral of Passus 7 pretty clearly (notice “Dowel” is a substitute for the words do well):

“But to trust these triennials, truly, it seems to me, Is clearly not as reliable for the soul as Dowel. Therefore I advise you men who are rich on earth, You who rely upon your treasure to buy triennials, Don’t be so quick to break the Ten Commandments; 185 And namely, you rulers, mayors and judges, Who possess the wealth of this world, and are considered wise men, To purchase for yourself pardon and papal bulls. At the dreadful judgment, when the dead shall rise And all come to Christ to give their accounts, 190 How you led your life here and kept His laws, And how you aquit yourself each day—the judgment will reveal. Neither a bagful of pardons nor provincial’s letters [will help you]— Even if you belong to the fraternities of all five orders, And have twice as many indulgences—unless Dowel helps you, 195 I assess your patents and your pardons at the value of one pie’s crust!”

Aside from criticizing the monetary culture of the Church, this passage also seems to push against legalism. Its focus on “how you aquit yourself each day” does not seem to be on the breaking of abstract rules, but on the treatment of other people. I think this is part of why Piers Plowman has stuck around for so long, because its claims can still resonate with many cultures and beliefs today.

In Passus 5 we’re reading about the seven deadly sins making confession. The sins are handled differently and with varying degrees of importance placed on them.

Pride punishes herself for her sinful ways by wearing a hair shirt. A fairly typical punishment of the time that doesn’t sound too bad at first but then I start to imagine it and my imagination makes me itch like crazy.

Next is Lust, represented by the Lecher. Being lustful apparently isn’t meaningful to the author since his punishment is simply to eat one meal and drink only water every Saturday for 7 years. This punishment also seems to have nothing at all to do with lust.

Envy is next with a longer description, implying that this sin holds more meaning to the author. The important thing I took away from Envy’s tale is that being sorry isn’t enough for repentance. Envy states, “I am always ‘sorry … I am seldom anything else” (pg 3 line 126). Envy doesn’t seem to have a punishment other than he will try to do better.

Wrath is next, he tells a story about once being a holy man himself, a friar, and taking pleasure in causing discord among other holy people. This section is rather sexist as Wrath implies that the holy women are easy to trick into wrathfulness while the holy men almost never fall for his tricks. His punishment is to not repeat secrets, which seems like a punishment directly related to wrath, and to not indulge so not to be tempted.

Gluttony comes last and is the longest part of the passus implying that this is the most important sin to the author. Sloth is combined with gluttony. In this part of the story Gluttony is on his way to confess but becomes distracted by his own gluttony on his way. So instead of confessing, he over indulges at a tavern then slothfully sleeps for days. Repentance comes to Gluttony since Gluttony couldn’t make it to him. Gluttony’s punishment is his confession of gluttony and sloth and he will eat only fish on Fridays, which seems like a weird punishment but I guess it is related to the sin.
Greed is left out and isn’t specifically mentioned as a sin. I assume by its lack it is the least important sin to the author or that it is implied in combination with other sins. Perhaps, like Sloth, Greed is part of Gluttony.

Passus 18 of Piers Plowman presents a fascinating dynamic between the politics of Heaven and Hell. In conventional tales of the Fall, you have the bad guys who want God’s power, and the good guys who concede to God’s authority. The bad guys are just plain bad and the good guys appropriately win out.

We have something far more complex here with Passus 18, as Heaven and Hell seem to be ruled by separate, yet largely parallel, political orders. While heaven is home to the Four Daughters of God (Mercy, Righteousness, Peace, Truth), Hell is governed by Lucifer, Satan, Goblin, and the Devil. The Daughters operate under a checks and balances system, as seen through the discourse between Mercy and Truth, where the two engage in rhetoric regarding redemption for souls in Hell before Truth calls upon Righteousness for her input, saying “Let’s rest here awhile, For she knows more than we do” (line 164-165). Following input from Righteousness and Peace, Book carries us to the subsequent “invasion” of hell. Although the committee of Daughters does not seem to have a direct influence on Christ’s invasion, it seems their discourse provides a necessary narrative representation of God’s decision making process. Considering Peace gets the last word among the Four, we are left with the impression that her explanation is the culmination of their discourse; God understands the complication of human folly and sends Christ to enact forgiveness.

Hell’s council, on the other hand, seem to be more at fault for their legislative ineptitude, despite the attention they give to the terms of agreement outlined subsequent to the Fall. Lucifer posits to the group that he has a right to the souls in Hell due to a contract with God that would commit sinners to Hell “if Adam ate the apple” (line 279). Satan and Goblin warn Lucifer, however, that his intervention as the deceitful snake could possibly be in violation of the contract. The Devil, who seems to be the informational authority on Heaven’s council, suggests that the agreement’s disbandment could lead to Hell losing its dead souls. Of course, this becomes the case.

This idea of Heaven and Hell as bodies governed by respective councils is by far my favorite representation of each realm’s authoritative structure, and most likely informs later interpretations such as that seen in Milton’s Paradise Lost and Twain’s Letters From the Earth.

In the Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts textbook chapter “The Power of Images,” there is much discussion revolving around the religious ethics behind images, but not a great deal of attention is paid to how these images change the readership experience. Take Piers Plowman, I was exposed to these images before we were assigned the reading, so my visualization is largely informed by the images now that I am reading. Would my Piers Plowman experience be different if I never saw them?

In observing the Prick of Conscience manuscript, the texts analyzes the apparent emotion with which the scribe also illustrates the story. The author demonstrates a desire for the manuscript to carry a significant aesthetic value, as the script form, color, and placement work in tandem to develop the story’s narrative. The OUMEM’s authors make note of the manuscript’s aesthetic as a priority for the script’s creator, claiming that they express “triumphant enthusiasm as having ‘delivered’ the poem” (OUMEM 200) a feat celebrated by the proud stork image at the story’s end. I think this idea is a part of an interesting conversation that continues to this day- is our experience with literature maximized or diminished by invoking our senses beyond text? For the time Prick of Conscience, Piers Plowman and others were produced, the use of illustrations was revolutionary for the reader experience. With every page, the narration was teamed with images which worked in tandem with text to tell a story, so the authors fully committed to this dynamic. In a way, this literary “experience” fits on a sensory spectrum that continues to stretch with time, as images, sounds and texts are continually merged in experimental ways through movies, shows and other mediums of entertainment. Thus, to this day we find ourselves space with literature not unlike that experienced in 14th century England.

I understand that Piers Plowman is a complex, multifaceted work and so I do not want this blog post to come off as a sweeping general assumption about the author’s purpose in creating the work; rather, I want this to serve as a potential modern interpretation based on subtle moments I noticed that feed into some themes I have noticed in our historical/contextual readings. My interpretation is likely informed, too, by my own personal experiences with newer texts and movements. With that being said, Passus 5 seemed to be an extended personification of some of the Seven Deadly Sins. More abstract ideas like Reason and Repentance are endowed with human-like traits, too, and are combatant toward the monstrous, unappealing entities of sin. I thought it was telling, first of all, that the Dream Vision genre was used here to visualize abstract ideas that would have been – I’m guessing – unacceptable or awkward to explore without the permissive genre that allows for just about anything. Though Dream Visions like most literary forms have a rough sort of formula they follow, this particular genre allows for endless possibilities. Dreams can be crazy and nonsensical on the surface, but sometimes they reveal to us some of the most important life truths (or, in this case, Truths). I argue, then, that the Langland poet chose the Dream Vision so that he could subtly hint at the Church’s fallibility when it comes to corruption and sin.

At the very opening of the poem, readers are given something resembling an introduction to the scene. We are told that “Reason preaches a sermon to the king and all the realm, urging the whole community to reform” (1). This indicates that human reason is the one directing this entire production and that everyone involved needs some degree of reform, Reform, of course, is a buzzword pertaining to the Church; especially in these times, it was the subject of several accusations and acts of reform. Repentance, one of the true solutions in the reform, “[makes] Will weep water with his eyes” (l. 60). If Will, the narrator, is also our author, this would indicate a direct involvement with the Dream Vision and its purpose. The narrator also refers to the Priests finding out about the corruption of the Friars (figures often viewed with disdain in medieval works – at least in the case of Chaucer). The whole situation just seems to open up the possibility of softly urging the Church to reform – or at least listen to those who want change.

In doing some basic online research on Piers Plowman, I was surprised to learn that there are more than 50 copies of the poem, yet none of them are considered to be the original work, produced by the hand of William Langland himself. Additionally, I learned that the majority of Piers Plowman manuscripts are in fragmented and incomplete. Because of the wide array of discrepancies in the different copies, scholars have found it difficult to determine which copies of the poem can be considered authoritative. In fact, according to what I’ve read, the scholarly community only accepts three copies of the text to be direct products of the original (and absent) production. Even these “authoritative” productions do not exist in complete form, and their authenticity is still a matter of academic debate.

For me, the most fascinating thing I’ve had to consider in reading and learning about Medieval Manuscripts is something Professor Seaman has alluded to a number of times in class: because of the sheer lack of information and physical productions, Medieval scholars must make a series of educated guesses and inferences based on the information they do have. Because the interpretation and analysis of Medieval texts is often theory-based, there is a high potential for debate and divergence among Medieval scholars. In this sense, Medieval studies is vastly different from other spheres of literary scholarship. In the average English class, the texts are presented in a complete and consistent form. Authorship and intent are rarely debatable on the same level as works such as Piers Plowman or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The study of Medieval literature takes on a distinctly scientific property. Scientific means must be used to analyze the physical manuscripts themselves, but the observation-hypothesis method of study that is necessary because of the absence of concrete knowledge in the field gives ENGL361 a feel that is closer to my Environmental Geology course than my Senior Seminar in Gothic Lit!