The William Langland Page


Works
William Langland's one surviving work, A Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, exists in more than fifty manuscripts from which have been derived three manuscript traditions which are known as Version A, Version B, and Version C. These three traditions seem to reflect the fact that their author spent considerable time revising his work, developing his treatment of the life of mankind in this world. Chaucer wrote in the London dialect of Middle English, the dialect from which Modern English is descended, and his Middle English takes only a bit of practice for modern beginners. Langland, and, for that matter, the Pearl Poet, wrote in a Midland dialect, and most beginners find it somewhat of a challenge, perhaps too much of a challenge.

Version B. Translated into Modern English with an introduction by J. F. Goodridge. Penguin, 1966. Prose translation. Notes.
A new translation by A. V. C. Schmidt. Oxford, 1992. Lots of explanatory notes.
On-Line in Middle English.

Version C
Derek Pearsall, Piers Plowman by William Langland, An Edition of the C-Text. California, 1982. Contains the Middle English text but has notes that would be helpful to anyone.

About Langland
John A. Alford, Editor, A Companion to Piers Plowman. California, 1988. Essays by various hands on a variety of topics. Highly useful.
Morton W. Bloomfield, Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth Century Apocalypse. Rutgers, 1961.
A Langland Home Page. Texts, images, articles, background. Check it out.
Langland at Luminarium. Beautiful work.
Piers Plowman Project.
Piers Plowman Criticism from Internet Public Library.

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