基本説明
For this new and fully updated edition, Langland scholar Derek Pearsall has conpletely revised the C-text (part of an A-B-C textual chronology).
Full Description
William Langland's poem stands at the centre of the study of ideological conflict, social change and religious ideas in the later fourteenth century. It is a poem that vividly encapsulates the great issues and debates of the day and acts as a commentary on cataclysmic events such as the Peasants' Revolt (1381), the condemnation of Wyclif's ideas (1382) and the rise of Lollardy. It is also one of the greatest poems of the English Middle Ages, worth reading beside Dante and Chaucer. The poem has provoked a sophisticated and wide-ranging critical literature. It needs to be read in an edition by an expert conceived with the student-reader in mind. Of the A, B and C versions of the text of Piers Plowman, only a student-geared edition of the B-text exists and that edition is now becoming dated. The C-text, which supersedes B in terms of Langland's poetic career, is also a more complete and carefully structured poem. It needs to be available in an equally readerly edition; this is such an edition.For his new edition of the C-text of Piers Plowman, Derek Pearsall has completely revised the text, added side glosses for the benefit of student readers of the poem (though without sacrificing the glossary), and revised and updated the explanatory notes. The Introduction has also been expanded, revised and reshaped to take account of this. Since the new edition involves a significant reworking of the previous edition and justifies library copy replacement, a hardback library edition will be available for a limited period.
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Select Bibliography of Critical Studies of Piers Plowman
Introduction
Prologue - The Fair Field Full of Folk
I. Holy Church
II. The Marriage Plans of Meed the Maid
III. Meed the Maid at Westminster
IV. Meed the Maid on Trial
V. The Author's Apologia and the Sermon of Reason
VI. The Confession of the Sins
VII. The Shriving of the Folk; Piers Plowman's Guide to Truth
VIII. The Ploughing of the Half-Acre
IX. The Pardon Sent from Truth
X. The Search for Dowel: The Discourse of the Friars, Thought
and Wit
XI. Learning and Salvation: the Discourse of Study, Clergy
and Rechelesnesse
XII. The Debate about Salvation continued: Discourse of Rechelesnesse
on Humility and Patient Poverty
XIII. Rechelesnesse Concludes; the Mirror of Middle-Earth
XIV. Imaginatif
XV. The Feast of Patience and the Meeting with Activa Vita
XVI. Patience and Liberum Arbitrium
XVII. Liberum Arbitrium on Charity and the Church
XVIII. The Tree of Charity and the Meeting with Faith
XIX. Hope and the Good Samaritan
XX. The Crucifixion and the Harrowing of Hell
XXI. The Founding of Holy Church
XXII. The Coming of Antichrist
Textual Variants
Reference List
Glossary
