Langland's fictions
By: J. A. Burrow.
Publisher: Clarendon; Oxford University Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 130
Subjects: Langland, William, 1330?-1400?; Christian poetry, English (Middle) -- History and criticism.; Poetry -- Psychological aspects.; Dreams in literature.; Rhetoric, Medieval.
Description: Langland's Piers Plowman is a profoundly Christian poem which nevertheless has enjoyed a wide general appeal. Readers - both religious and non-religious - have been drawn by the power of Langland's fictive imagination, the rich variety of imaginary worlds in his great dream-poem.

Langland's Fictions examines the construction of the ten dreams which make up the B Text of Piers Plowman, and explores the relation of these dream-fictions to those realities with which the poet was chiefly preoccupied. This relationship is discussed under three main headings: 'fictions of the divided mind', in which the poet's mixed feelings about matters such as the value of learning find expression in imagined scenes and actions; 'fictions of history', in which the main events of salvation history are relived in the parallel worlds of dream; and 'fictions of the self', in which Langland's doubtful sense of his own moral standing as a man and a poet apparently finds expression. This chapter also addresses the controversial question of 'autobiographical elements' in the poem. J. A. Burrow's lively and considered study is a major contribution to our understanding of one of medieval literature's most enduring works.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [123]-128) and index.
Revision of four Alexander Lectures delivered in Toronto in 1989.