Conscience and the Composition of Piers Plowman

Author:   Sarah Wood (Lecturer in English, University College London)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
ISBN:  

9780199653768


Pages:   200
Publication Date:   03 May 2012
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
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Conscience and the Composition of Piers Plowman


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Overview

Conscience and the Composition of Piers Plowman provides a detailed account of one of the central personified figures in William Langland's Piers Plowman. Previous critical accounts of Conscience either focus on discussions of the faculty conscience in scholastic discourse, or eschew personification allegory as a useful category in order to argue for the figure's development or education as a character during the poem. But Conscience only appears to develop as he is re-presented, in the course of Piers Plowman, within a series of different literary modes. And he changes not only during the composition of the various episodes in different modes that make up the single version, but also during the composition of the poem as a series of three different versions. The versions of Piers Plowman form, this book argues, a single continuous narrative or argument, in which revisions to Conscience's role in one version are predicated upon his cumulative 'experiences' in the earlier versions. Drawing on a variety of materials in both Middle English and Latin, Sarah Wood illustrates the wide range of contemporary discourses Langland employed as he composed Conscience in the three versions of the poem. By showing how Langland transformed Conscience as he composed the A, B and C texts, Conscience and the Composition of Piers Plowman offers a new approach to reading the serial versions of the poem. While the versions of Piers Plowman have customarily been presented and read in parallel-text formats, Wood shows that Langland's revisions are newly comprehensible if the three versions are read in sequence.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sarah Wood (Lecturer in English, University College London)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.90cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 22.20cm
Weight:   0.386kg
ISBN:  

9780199653768


ISBN 10:   0199653763
Pages:   200
Publication Date:   03 May 2012
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

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Reviews

this is a serious and thoughtful book, one that offers a lot of local insight into Piers Plowman. * A. S. G. Edwards, Times Literary Supplement *


this is a serious and thoughtful book, one that offers a lot of local insight into Piers Plowman. A. S. G. Edwards, Times Literary Supplement


Author Information

Sarah Wood completed her Masters and D.Phil. at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She currently teaches Old and Middle English literature at University College London.

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