William Langland - Wikipedia William Langland From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Fourteenth century English poet This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) "Langland's Dreamer": from an illuminated initial in a Piers Plowman manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. William Langland (/ˈlæŋlənd/; Latin: Willielmus de Langland; c. 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as Piers Plowman, an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem translated the language and concepts of the cloister into symbols and images that could be understood by a layman. Contents 1 Life 2 Attribution 3 See also 4 References 5 Sources 6 External links Life[edit] Very little is known of Langland himself. It seems that he was born in the West Midlands of England around 1330, according to internal evidence in Piers Plowman. The narrator in Piers Plowman receives his first vision while sleeping in the Malvern Hills (between Herefordshire and Worcestershire), which suggests some connection to the area. The dialect of the poem is also consistent with this part of the country. Piers Plowman was written c. 1377, as the character's imagination says he has followed him for "five and forty winters." A fifteenth century note in the Dublin manuscript of Piers Plowman says that Langland was the son of Stacy de Rokayle.[1] Langland is believed to have been born in Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire,[2] although Ledbury, Herefordshire, and Great Malvern, Worcestershire also have strong claims to being his birthplace. There is a plaque to that effect in the porch of Cleobury Mortimer's parish church,[3] which also contains a memorial window, placed in 1875, depicting the Piers Plowman vision.[4] Langland is thought to have been a novitiate of Woodhouse Friary located nearby.[5] There are strong indications that Langland died in 1385 or 1386. A note written by "Iohan but" (John But) in a fourteenth-century manuscript of the poem (Rawlinson 137) makes direct reference to the death of its author: "whan this werke was wrouyt, ere Wille myte aspie/ Deth delt him a dent and drof him to the erthe/ And is closed vnder clom" ("once this work was made, before Will was aware/ Death struck him a blow and knocked him to the ground/ And now he is buried under the soil"). According to Edith Rickert, John But himself seems to have died in 1387, indicating that Langland died shortly before this date. Nonetheless some scholars believe Langland was the author of the 1399 work.[1] Most of what is believed about Langland has been reconstructed from Piers Plowman. The C text of the poem contains a passage in which the narrator describes himself as a "loller" or "idler" living in the Cornhill area of London, and refers to his wife and child. It also suggests that he was well above average height and made a living reciting prayers for the dead. However, the distinction between allegory and reality in Piers Plowman is blurred, and the entire passage, as Wendy Scase observes, is reminiscent of the false confession tradition in medieval literature (also seen in the Confessio Goliae and in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose). A similar passage in the final Passus of the B and C texts provides further ambiguous details on the poet's wife and his torments by Elde (Old Age), including baldness, gout, and impotence. This may indicate that the poet had reached middle age by the 1370s, but the accuracy of the passage is called into question by the conventional nature of the description (see, for instance, Walter Kennedy's "In Praise of Aige" and The Parliament of the Three Ages) and the fact that it occurs near the end of the poem, when Will's personal development is reaching its logical conclusion. The detailed and highly sophisticated religious knowledge displayed in the poem indicates that Langland had some connection to the clergy, but the nature of this relationship is uncertain. The poem shows no obvious bias towards any particular group or order of churchmen, but is even-handed in its anticlericalism. This makes it difficult to align Langland with any specific order. He is probably best regarded, John Bowers writes, as a member of "that sizable group of unbeneficed clerks who formed the radical fringe of contemporary society ... the poorly shod Will is portrayed 'y-robed in russet' traveling about the countryside, a crazed dissident showing no respect to his superiors". Malcolm Godden has proposed that he lived as an itinerant hermit, attaching himself to a patron temporarily and exchanging writing services for shelter and food. Robert Crowley's 1550 edition of Piers Plowman promoted the idea that Langland was a follower of John Wycliffe. However, this conclusion is challenged by early Lollard appropriation of the Plowman figure (see, for instance, Pierce the Ploughman's Crede and The Plowman's Tale). It is true that Langland and Wycliffe shared many concerns: Both questioned the value of indulgences and pilgrimages, promoted the use of the vernacular in preaching, attacked clerical corruption, and even advocated disendowment. But these topics were widely discussed throughout the late 14th century and were not specifically associated with Wycliffe until after the presumed time of Langland's death. Also, as Pamela Gradon observes[citation needed], at no point does Langland echo Wycliffe's characteristic teachings on the sacraments. Attribution[edit] The attribution of Piers Plowman to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin (MS 212). This manuscript ascribes Piers Plowman to Willielmi de Langland, son of Stacy de Rokayle, "who died in Shipton-under-Wychwood, a tenant of the Lord Spenser in the county of Oxfordshire". Other manuscripts name the author as Robert or William Langland, or Wilhelms W. (most likely shorthand for William of Wychwood). The poem itself also seems to point to Langland's authorship. At one point, the narrator remarks: "I have lived in londe [...] my name is longe wille" (B XV.152). This can be taken as a coded reference to the poet's name, in the style of much late-medieval literature (see, for instance, Villon's acrostics in Le Testament). However, it has also been suggested that medieval scribes and readers may have understood this line as referring to a "William Longwille", the pseudonym used by a Norfolk rebel in 1381.[6] Although there is little other evidence, Langland's authorship has been widely accepted since the 1920s. It is not, however, entirely beyond dispute, as recent work by Stella Pates and C. David Benson has demonstrated.[7] See also[edit] Poetry portal Pearl Poet Piers Plowman References[edit] ^ a b Anniina Jokinen (8 March 2010). "Life of William Langland (c.1330-1387?)". www.luminarium.org. Luminarium. ^ "Mortymers Clibury", Bale, Illustris Majoris Britanniae ^ Dickens, Gordon (1987). An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire. Shropshire Libraries. p. 46. ISBN 0-903802-37-6. ^ An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire. p. 94. ^ William Langland, Harvard College, retrieved 5 January 2013 ^ Sobecki, Sebastian (2018). "Hares, Rabbits, Pheasants:Piers Plowman and William Longewille, a Norfolk Rebel in 1381". Review of English Studies: 1–21. doi:10.1093/res/hgx130. ^ C. David Benson, "The Langland Myth," in William Langland's Piers Plowman: A Book of Essays, ed. Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 83–99. ISBN 0-8153-2804-4 Sources[edit] John M. Bowers, "Piers Plowman and the Police: notes towards a history of the Wycliffite Langland," Yearbook of Langland Studies 6 (1992), pp. 1–50. Pamela Godden, "Langland and the Ideology of Dissent," Proceedings of the British Academy 66 (1980), pp. 179–205. Malcolm Gradon, The Making of Piers Plowman (London: Longman, 1990). ISBN 0-582-01685-1 Edith Rickert, "John But, Messenger and Maker," Modern Philology 11 (1903), pp. 107–17. Wendy Scase, Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). ISBN 0-521-36017-X. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: William Langland Wikisource has original works written by or about: William Langland International Piers Plowman Society Website of international scholarly organization for the study of Piers Plowman and other alliterative poems; includes a searchable database of all scholarship on these poems since 1986. Piers Plowman Electronic Archive A multi-level, hypertextually linked electronic archive of the textual tradition of all three versions of the fourteenth-century allegorical dream vision Piers Plowman. Works by William Langland at Project Gutenberg Works by or about William Langland at Internet Archive Authority control BIBSYS: 90144348 BNE: XX1244084 BNF: cb12025816n (data) GND: 118778692 ISNI: 0000 0001 2135 6178 LCCN: n78095389 NDL: 00446855 NKC: xx0005691 NLI: 000080961 NLK: KAC199615914 NTA: 068942125 PLWABN: 9810593358605606 SELIBR: 218221 SNAC: w6891mm9 SUDOC: 028419308 Trove: 899742 VcBA: 495/82508 VIAF: 61560236 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n78095389 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Langland&oldid=1001710865" Categories: 1332 births 1386 deaths 14th-century Christian mystics 14th-century English people 14th-century English poets 14th-century English writers Middle English poets English Christians English male poets English Christian mystics People from Malvern, Worcestershire Roman Catholic mystics Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Articles lacking in-text citations from May 2017 All articles lacking in-text citations Use British English from October 2020 Use dmy dates from October 2020 Articles containing Latin-language text All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from July 2017 Articles with Project Gutenberg links Articles with Internet Archive links Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikiquote Wikisource Languages العربية Català Čeština Cymraeg Deutsch Español Esperanto فارسی Français 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Nederlands Norsk bokmål پنجابی Polski Português Română Русский Simple English Suomi Svenska Edit links This page was last edited on 20 January 2021, at 23:38 (UTC). 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