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OverviewThe first full survey of crucial witnesses to the reception of Piers Plowman. The fifty-plus surviving manuscripts of William Langland's Piers Plowman cast important light on the early public life of this central Middle English work, but they have been relatively neglected by scholarship. This first full study of the subject examines the textual variants, marginal rubrics and companion texts in the manuscripts. It illuminates a reception quite distinct from the reformist poems written by Langland's imitators in ""the Piers Plowman tradition"". It reveals how the earliest scribes devised various traditional forms of presentation that proved remarkably durable in the poem's subsequent reception, even surviving into the age of print. Exploring Piers Plowman's appearances in the manuscripts, paired unexpectedly with such genres as romance, hagiography and travel literature, the book demonstrates the surprisingly affective responses of medieval readers to the represented lives of the narrator Will and the title figure Piers the Plowman. At the same time, it shows that the evidence for individual scribal agendas in particular copies is more ambiguous than often assumed, with each book reflecting the activities of an unknown number of hands and an uncertain mixture of design and accident. By drawing on evidence from textual scholarship as well as codicological and literary approaches, the author offers fresh insight into Piers Plowman's place in literary history and proposes new ways of understanding the late medieval manuscript as a multi-layered, collaborative product. Sarah Wood is Associate Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Warwick Full Product DetailsAuthor: Dr Sarah WoodPublisher: York Medieval Press Imprint: York Medieval Press Dimensions: Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.40cm Weight: 0.001kg ISBN: 9781914049071ISBN 10: 1914049071 Pages: 264 Publication Date: 16 August 2022 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviews"The book's strength lies in Wood's ability to reconstruct textual possibilities, whether from omissions in manuscripts hitherto believed to be accidental or from larger-scale, contested theses about the ""usual suspects."" * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *" Author InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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