The lost history of Piers Plowman
By: Lawrence Warner.
Series: The Middle Ages series
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 117
ISBN-13: 9780812242751
Subjects: Langland, William, -- 1330?-1400? -- Criticism, Textual; Langland, William, -- 1330?-1400? -- Manuscripts
Description: According to received history, the poem exists in three distinct, chronological versions, the A, B, and C texts, with most scholars agreeing that Langland completed the B textùthe version most familiar to modern readersùaround 1377-78. Challenging much of the prevalent wisdom about the poem, Warner argues that the received B text is not an integral poem aligned with a single author but, rather, two groups of manuscripts, each of which, because of scribal activities, takes on varying amounts of what we now call C version matter. Through close textual analysis, he reveals that the B text is a conflation of an ur-B text with a collection of passages that belong to the C version of circa 1390, demonstrating that the circulation of the C text actually predates that of the B. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Piers Plowman before 1400: evidence for the earliest circulation of A, B, and C 1; title: Scribal conflation, convergent variation, and the invention of Piers Plowman B; title: The poison of possession: B Passus 15; title: The ending, and end, of Piers Plowman B; title: Conclusion: Lollars, friars, and fyndynges: C Passus 9 and the creation of Piers Plowman.