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An Interpretation of the A-Text of Piers Plowman
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In none of the scholarly treatments of the texts of Piers Plowman have I seen the theory advanced that the A-text is a contraction or an abridgment, for any purpose whatsoever, of the B- or C-texts. I take it that B is an enlargement of A, and that C is a revision of both. A, therefore, is the seed, whereas the other two are second thoughts, either of the A poet or of others, and it makes little difference which. If the three texts were written by one man, it is important to know what his original purpose was before one discusses his afterthoughts. If the poets are three, it is still important to know what he meant and planned who gave an idea to his followers.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1938
References
1 This article was accepted by PMLA in the spring of 1937. Inasmuch as word was received that the Reverend Mr. T. P. Dunning's book, Piers Plowman: An Interpretation of the A-Text (The Talbot Press Limited: Dublin and Cork, 1937) was in the press, it was withheld until the publication in October, 1937, of that book. In many particulars Dr. Dunning and I agree, although our conclusions were reached upon entirely different methods of approach. His interpretation is much fuller than mine can be in a short article, and his work excellent for its consideration of the text against the intellectual background. His illustration of many points based upon evidence from earlier and contemporary church fathers and moralists is of distinct value. Also his definitions of Reason, Kuynde Wit, Conscience, Meed, etc., and the consistency with which he holds to them are a step forward in Piers Plowman scholarship. His interpretation of the poem as a whole from the didactic, not satirical, point of view and his demonstration of the artistic unity in its structure are also valuable. I disagree with him, however, in three points: (1) I think the theme of the poem is more the poet's individual concern with the question “What must I do to save my soul?” than an allegorical sermon upon the “right use of temporal goods,” although the connection is close; (2) I find an artistic unity in the Visio and the Vita taken together; (3) I think taken as a whole it is less orthodox than it is usually supposed to be.
2 Opinion as to the orthodoxy of the poem is best summed up in Dunning, Piers Plowman, pp. 9–15.
3 (London, 1909).
4 Plato's Meno, Translated by Floyer Sydenham, Everyman Library, p. 87.
5 Professor Chambers has shown that one text has moylere. On this see Dunning, op. cit., p. 87. Either word makes good sense.
6 She seems to stand for more than “cupidity,” see Dunning, op. cit., pp. 70, 93.
7 An excellent interpretation of this in Dunning, op. cit., pp. 54–58, 94.
8 If, as Skeat says in his notes, he had paid to keep that kingdom instead of demanding 3,000,000 crowns for the ransom of the French King John. See Dunning, op. cit., p. 95, for further elaboration.
9 For a good interpretation see Dunning, op. cit., p. 104.
10 This carrying over of the action to the first few lines of the succeeding passus is one of the devices frequently used by the poet to bind together the parts of his poem.
“al laugwhinge he loutede and lokede uppon Studie
In signe that I schulde bisechen hire of grace” (97, 98).
12 The ascendet should read ascendit, and in its context, John in. 13, has nothing to do with predestination, but is rather a special reference to Christ's having descended from heaven and his destined return to it. The verb is corrected in the B- and C- texts, but the interpretation remains the same.
13 This I take to be the keynote of the poem. Dr. Dunning (p. 60) minimizes its importance by considering it merely a common rhetorical device of the time, designed to give the poet an opportunity of outlining further his theme.
14 EETS, 49, 89.
15 O. F. Emerson, A Middle English Reader (Macmillan, 1932), p. 47.
16 Edited by F. J. Furnivall (1862), for the Roxburghe Club.
17 Political Songs of England from the Reign of John to Edward III, ed. Thomas Wright, Camden Society (1839), 3 vols.
18 See especially, Richard the Redeless, in Skeat's 1886 ed. of Piers Plowman; and The Complaint of the Plowtnan, T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs, Rolls Series (London 1859–61), I, 304.
19 PMLA, xlvii, 354.