ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY*

1991

* The annual bibliography attempts to provide coverage of the year's work not only on Piers Plowman but also on other didactic or allegorical poems in the alliterative tradition (e.g., Winner and Waster, Death and Life, Mum and the Sothsegger, Richard the Redeless, Parliament of the Three Ages, but not alliterative romances or the works of the Gawain poet).

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1. Adams, Robert. "Editing and the Limitations of the Durior Lectio." YLS 5 (1991): 7-15.

Kane's choice among the variants of plante of pees (A. 1. 137), a durior lectio, was probably correct, though not on those grounds, since planete of pees, perhaps an even harder reading found in one B manuscript and thus perhaps in the A archetype, makes sense as a reference to Mercury symbolizing Christ as the psychopomp. But at B.5.514 baches, the durzor lectio when compared with bankes, is probably incorrect, given what appears to be a buried scriptural allusion to Ezekiel 34:6 that illuminates the narrative situation of B. 5- 7. Plante of pees likewise seems a translation of the Septuagint version of Ezekiel 34:29, which could have come to WL through quotations by the Latin fathers or commentaries. Finally, B. 18.179 (C. 20.182), emended by K-D on the basis of the C archetype to mercy synge from mercy shul haue, appears to be a case of a reading that was too hard, yet "to sing mercy" probably echoes a response of the first Friday of the Octave of Epiphany or one of the following day which begins with misericordia.

2. Allen, David G. "Readers as Friends or Lovers: Passionate Reading and the Forming of Piers Plowman." Genre 22 (1989): 345-54.

The flexibility, inventiveness, and complexity of PPl encourage the reader to enter into its creation much as in the fashion of a "writerly text" defined by Roland Barthes. But to do so runs the risk of an erotic interaction of reader and text that recalls Augustine's experience of the Aeneid (Conf. 1.13.21; 56). Christian literary theory aimed to encourage instead an innocent amicitia with texts through allegory. Yet PPl in particular exhibits a late-medieval skepticism over the moral value of friendship that works against any special relationship among writer, reader, and writerly text.

3. Belisle, Alexander George. "A Historical and Stylistic Analysis of Richard the Redeless and Mum and the Sothsegger." Diss. University of Rhode Island, 1990. DAI 52 (1991): 544A.

4. Biggs, Frederick M. "'For God is After an Hand': Piers Plowman B. 17.138-205." YLS 5 (1991): 17-30.

The extended metaphor of the Trinity as a hand is unusual in identifying the Son, rather than the Holy Spirit, as the finger. WL's identification of the palm with the Holy Spirit, while apparently without explicit source, seems consonant with the doctrine of filioque, the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, but the Samaritan's image, in emphasizing the Holy Spirit's importance, comes close to implying that procession derives from the Holy Spirit. The metaphor is intended to show Will that love is as essential to the working of the Trinity as it is in human affairs, and that the Holy Spirit embodies this love, i.e., that which exists between the Father and the Son as well as in caritas among mankind.

5. Blake, N. F. "Vernon Manuscript: Contents and Organisation." Pearsall, Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (no. 35) 45-59, esp. 47, 55-56.

The prose texts of part 4 of the Vernon manuscript and PPl, while not necessarily promoting advanced spirituality, exhibit "a greater sophistication in approach and make greater emotional and intellectual demands on the reader" than the texts in other sections.

6. Boitani, Piero and Anna Torti, eds. Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England. The J. A. W. Bennett Memorial Lectures, Perugia, 1988. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990. See nos. 17 and 34.

7. Brewer, Charlotte. "Authorial vs. Scribal Writing in Piers Plowman. Machan, Medieval Literature: Texts and Interpretation (no. 26) 59-89.

Both Kane (A text) and K-D (B text) reject recension as a practicable means of editing PP1 in favor of discrimination between variants to determine which might most likely give rise to others through scribal error. K-D believe that by the time of the B text WL wrote according to a strict though eccentric alliterative pattern, which they use as a criterion of emendation; they accept that the archetype of the extant B manuscripts was corrupt, and they emend on the basis of A and/or C text readings. Their assumption of only three original texts is challenged by manuscripts that cannot easily be assimilated into the ABC model, as well as by the multiplicity and diversity of variational readings. K-D assume WL's writing was of consistently high quality and that he revised in a logical and consecutive way, never returning to an A reading for his C text. Kane assumes WL would have been responsible for only one (at most) variant in any textual crux, and that of any two main variants the one supported by the majority is authorial.

MSS. RF of the B tradition show omission of large portions of the text, yet such omissions do not result in narrative disruption, and F contains more than 100 original and unique readings. Often K-D dismiss the archetypal B reading and revert to that of Kane's A text, yet Kane arrived at his A reading through a methodology that K-D later rejected, i.e., taking into account only A manuscript readings. Comparison of Kane's A text and K-D for Prol. -B. 7 indicates that many rejected variants, particularly in the apparently genetic group EAMH³, reappear as B readings.

8. Conlee, John W., ed. Middle English Debate Poetry: A Critical Anthology. East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1991.

9. Cooper, Helen. "Gender and Personification in Piers Plowman." YLS 5 (1991): 31-48.

WL is not constrained by Germanic gender structure, which associated abstraction with femaleness and consequently often led authors to explain away female personifications when the meaning required the masculine or to resort to exemplary types instead of abstract nouns. To WL, on the contrary, lechery is always male, and in the Confession scene, where sins are exemplified in behavior rather than personified as concepts, several sins are presented in their potential to be both male and female. WL's personifications are not, strictly speaking, allegorical in the medieval rhetorical sense of the word as requiring an interpretation at odds with the text, but are more closely allied to metonymy, i.e., a substitution of something for the same thing. Many of his personifications are projections of the Dreamer and hence share his gender. Elsewhere, the allegorical usefulness of a particular relationship underlies variations in the gendering of personifications that become different characters in different situations.

10. Dane, Joseph A. "Copy-Text and Its Variants in Some Recent Chaucer Editions." SB 44 (1991): 164-83, esp. 180-83.

MS. T, on which Kane based his edition of the A text, is as close to a copy-text as could be in a non-recension edition, since it is used to supply grammatical and orthographical forms and thus a system for regularization of accidentals. K-D chose W as the "basic manuscript" for the edition of the B text, but here the presumption of authority given to the base manuscript in substantive matters is secondary to its supplying the "closest dialectical and chronological approximation to the poet's language."

11. DiMarco, Vincent. "Annual Bibliography 1990." YLS 5 (1991): 211-32.

12. Doyle, A. 1. "The Shaping of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts." Pearsall, Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (no. 35) 1-14, esp. 5, 7.

Incidental references: While the prose of part 4 of the Vernon manuscript is mainly devotional and ascetical, the poems that conclude this section, PPl, Joseph of Arimathea and Judas and Pilate, manifest the narrative and homiletic character of previous parts. That book 2 of Hilton's Scale of Perfection is not in the manuscript may indicate the comparative date of its compilation or the time lag in the circulation of an augmented work, as is paralleled in the case of PPl, of which only the A text is included.

13. DuBoulay, F. R. H. The England of Piers Plowman.- William Langland and His Vision of the Fourteenth Century. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991

An introduction to the poem (generally the B text), considered as illustrative of fourteenth-century society. WL lived c.1330-86; may have been educated in Oxford or a monastic school; did not go on to major orders for want of patronage; at some later point probably married; reached an impasse in middle age over questions of divine arbitrariness in granting salvation, God's evident unpredictability, and the futility of learning; and is partially reflected in the minstrel-figure Haukyn. WL's views on serfdom are compassionate but tough, tinged with pity but interpreting it as a consequence of original sin. His society is characterized by the indifferent majority's lack of interest in religion; WL himself was more concerned with the actualities of religion rather than with its forms.

WL understood Truth as existing in both speaking and doing; his directions to Truth, founded on the Ten Commandments, are nonetheless concerned with personal gentleness and charity. Dowel, Dobet, Dobest all concern the life of grace, lived by the practice of charity and illustrated in the ministry of Christ. The test of charity is the ability to notice it in others. The multiple identification of Piers suggests that Christ, Piers, and the ordinary Christian participate in the lives of each other. The end of the poem, rather than apocalyptic prophecy, represents WL's search for grace and effort that must be renewed; it was written when he saw his own death approaching.

WL's virulent criticism of the friars is unjustified by the historical record.

14. Finlayson, John. "Alliterative Narrative Poetry: The Control of the Medium." Traditio 44 (1988): 419-51, esp. 441-45.

WL's employment of the alliterative tradition is not as far removed from "classical" alliterative practices as has often been assumed. PPl features numerous alliterative pleonasms and repetitious doublets many of which are not echoed in the romances -which are used without irony and whose function is clearly poetic. WL works through rhythmic repetition, cumulative variation, and parallel accretion. The C text appears no less pared down than B with respect to alliterative decoration.

15. Fletcher, Alan J. "The Hideous Feet of Langland's Peacock." N&Q ns 38 (1991): 18-20.

The mention of the peacock's ugly feet (B. 12.242ff.) is paralleled by Bartholomaeus Anglicus, the fourteenth-century Fasciculus morum, and a late fourteenth-century sermon found in Worcester Cathedral Library MS. F. 10. The usual moralization involves shame or sorrow over sins; WL's moralization, that the peacock's feet stand for false executors who do not faithfully discharge responsibilities, has not been traced.

16. Gallacher, Patrick J. "Imagination, Prudence, and the Sensus Comrnunis." YLS 5 (1991): 49-64.

Imaginatif often functions in PPl as the sensus communis, that which coordinates sense experience, informed and directed by prudence. In this sense, imagination is thought by Aquinas to complete prudence through estimation and the coordination of senses; it is thus related to both the skillful activity of crafts in society and the practice of guile, i.e., the perversion of craft. In B. 18, an action imaginatively devised by Longinus has a miraculously unexpected effect of manifesting in the dead Christ "a hidden divinity that is both the primary instance of the guile beguiled motif ... and the most important example of prudence," whereby Christ elicits from Longinus a faith that makes use of sensory consciousness, estimation, and coordination.

17. Harbert, Bruce. "A Will with a Reason: Theological Developments in the C-Revision of Piers Plowman." Boitani and Torti (no. 6) 149-61.

The C revisions are characterized by a greater concern for theological accuracy (removal of the tearing of the Pardon and of Piers's throwing the prop that represents the Son of God) and by a greater importance given to reason and comparatively less importance given to will. Love and learning are brought closer in the revision of Study's remarks (C. 11; cf. B. 10), and the fourteenth-century cognitive meanings of truth, e.g., that which is grasped by reason, may be reflected in the revisions of the Trajan episode. Liberum Arbitrium, added in C, is understood to be a facultas rationis et voluntatis, as in C. 16.176. The C text is more a poem of the common man; WL's sympathies "have become more inclusive, his idealism less headstrong. . . ."

18. Harwood, Britton J. "The Plot of Piers Plowman and the Contradictions of Feudalism." Speaking Two Languages.- Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991. 91-114, 242-53.

WL adapted textual forms for theological reasons and at the same time reflected the limitations of his own historical position. Conservative critics, stressing the traditional ethical or theological background of the poem, or viewing it as a text transparent to political or economic conditions, emphasize unity and consistency at the expense of an understanding of the disparities and discontinuities within the text. WL himself apparently belonged to the landowning class, and the poem largely reproduces the social relations of feudalism and serves the interests of the ruling class; for all of his sympathy for the poor, WL never inquires into the political and economic conditions for the existence of involuntary poverty. Yet Piers represents WL's attempt to overcome the opposition of external authority (which, as in WW, aims to neutralize contending inferiors) and something interior to consciousness; significantly, Piers, on the side of the landlords in resisting the mobile laborers in B.6 is at the same time a peasant employer of labor and thus on the side of those who oppose the labor statutes.

19. Henry, Avril. "'The Pater Noster in a table ypeynted' and Some Other Presentations of Doctrine in the Vernon Manuscript." Pearsall, Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (no. 35) 89-113.

PPl in the Vernon manuscript is exceptional, since A. 12 presumably included discussion of predestination and freewill, while the religious material of the manuscript is as a whole completely orthodox and treated without great theological depth. The contrast of the Life of Adam and Eve with the greatly more complex PPl which follows it in the manuscript typifies the range of both material and approach in the manuscript, and hence the difficulty of associating it with any specific group of manuscripts.

20. Hill, Thomas D. "Universal Salvation and Its Literary Context in Piers Plowman B. 18." YLS 5 (1991): 65-76.

B. 18.366-79a, a passage that unambiguously promises salvation to all at the Last Judgment, even to the unbaptized, might have been defined as heretical at some times in the history of the Church, but in WL's time is better understood as the poet's individual response to a difficult eschatological problem -the reconciliation of hell with the Judaeo-Christian emphasis on the benevolence and justice of God and with the notion of God as a creator who is implicated in his creation. Origen's idea of apocatastasis, that all things will revert to the good order established by God at creation, was denounced by Augustine, yet Ambrose and Jerome continued to believe that all baptized Christians could expect to be saved, and orthodox eschatological visions like the Visio Pauli and the Apocalypse of Mary offer mitigation of the sufferings of the damned. There are scattered instances of these beliefs in OE literature and in the comforting promise Julian of Norwich receives from God concerning the effects of sin. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Inferus speaks as if Christ had rescued all who had been imprisoned. In this text the Harrowing is universal and the implications for the Last judgment implicit; in PPl only the worthy are saved at the Harrowing, but mercy will extend to all at the judgment.

21. Hudson, Anne. The Premature Revolution: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. 398-408.

That PPl was perceived as an incitement to revolution is suggested by reference to it in the 1381 letter of John Sheep (a pseudonym of John Ball) and reference to Per Plowman along with Johannis B (John Ball?) in the Dieulacres Abbey Chronicle. PP1 is never mentioned in the course of an investigation for Lollardy, yet it was clearly apprehended by Lollard authors as a work relevant to issues they considered important. Material in A, taken over unchanged in B and C, antedates Wyclif's publication of any of the views for which he was later censured. Material introduced in B might have derived from WL's hearing Wyclif's sermons 1376-79; material peculiar to C could chronologically reflect Wyclif's teaching up to his death and the teaching of his followers. Although the C text was presumably written after Wyclif's views were condemned in 1382, it is uncertain how widely news of the condemnation circulated beyond Oxford academic circles.

There is no sympathy in PPl with Wyclif's heretical beliefs concerning the Eucharist, yet Imaginatif's assertion of the clergy's role in the sacrament, B. 12.87, is omitted from C. WL is orthodox concerning the legitimacy of the religious orders, yet the scene at the end of B and C where Contrition is "denatured" by Frere Flaterer might well have been perceived in the 1380s and 1390s as sympathetic to Wyclif's rejection of the fraternal orders. PPl is closest to Wycliffite thought on the question of clerical temporalities, even though Wyclif was hardly alone in calling for disendowment. No aspect of lollarene lyf in the poem is assimilable to Wyclif's ideals or practices, however, and WL did not associate loller with any particular creed. Indications that the C text was revised to avoid the implications of Wycliffite sympathy seem to be countered by indications of the reverse.

22. Hussey, S. S. "Implications of Choice and Arrangement of Texts in Part 4." Pearsall (no. 35) 61-74, esp. 61-66, 72-73.

PPl in the Vernon manuscript is particularly close to the text of MS. Harley 875, but the Vernon text is heavily corrupt. The Vernon manuscript choice of exemplars for both PPl and book 2 of the Scale of Perfection does not suggest a compiler either able or concerned to select an authentic text.

23. Johnson, David F. "'Persen with a Pater-Noster Paradys Oþer Hevene': Piers Plowman C. 11.296-98a." YLS 5 (1991): 77-89.

The revision of B. 10.450-62 (cf. A.11.311-13) in C is explained with reference to the authoritative doctrine of the Beatific Vision as formulated by Benedict XII, which reversed the extreme position of John XXII that denied the possibility of the vision to anyone before judgment Day. The A and B versions are equally extreme in asserting an immediate enjoyment of the vision without mention of the purification of the soul in purgatory. The apparent tautology of WL's revision to paradys oþerhevene effectively tones down a direct reference to the site of the vision; the addition of the preposition in passen thorgh purgatorie removes the ambiguity of B (to 'pass through' or to 'bypass'); and the removal of the temporal marker of immediacy at hir hennes partyng seeks to avoid even the suggestion that the vision could be achieved without the purgative process.

24. Kimmelman, Burt Joseph. "The Poetics of Authorship in the Later Middle Ages: The Emergence of the Modern Literary Persona." Diss. City University of New York, 1991. DAI 52 (1991): 1741A.

25. Kruger, Steven F. "Mirrors and Trajectories of Vision in Piers Plowman." Speculum 66 (1991): 74-95.

The two dreams of C.11-13 epitomize a movement from self-examination to a vision of divine order, as a narcissistic mirror is transformed into an upwardly focused one that reflects universal order. Will comes to the first mirror of Middle Earth distant from true self-understanding, yet situated in the context of intellectual pursuit of truth. But while the scene of the inner dream, the lond of longyng, represents the dreamer's "radical entry into himself," his own participation in sin is exposed. The mirror of Fortune offers no transcendent vision, and the dominant voice of C. 12 is that of Recklessness. But the dreamer comes to understand the transience of worldly pleasures as he becomes attached to Covetise, and Kynde's mirror manifests the recognition of a world governed by Reason, while it also depicts the discordances that arise from humanly generated disorder; and Will irrationally blames Reason, not individual volition, for illicit conduct. Nonetheless, the inner vision has led to the salutary meeting with Imaginatif. Will must dream further, until the third vision's revelations can be known as kyndely and put into action. His situation perhaps mirrors that of the Christian poet in attempting to reconcile the authority of doctrinal truth with the need to represent life autobiographically and experientially.

26. Machan, Tim William, ed. Medieval Literature: Texts and Interpretation. Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.

27. Machan, Tim William. "Late Middle English Texts and the Higher and Lower Criticisms." Machan, Medieval Literature: Texts and Interpretation (no. 26) 3-16.

The "objectivity" of textual criticism is informed by the "subjectivity" of literary interpretation. Kane's belief that WL's actual texts can be recovered with a remarkable degree of certainty rests on a distinction between authorial and scribal usus scribendi that is essentially qualitative; his denial of "intellectual and even creative engagement" with the text of a great work on the part of scribes is an impressionistic and self-validating literary judgment disguised as an objective textual assessment. There are no textual or contextual features in the manuscripts that imply the exclusive right of WL's text to be authorial, that identify various manuscripts as containing versions we know as A, B and C, or that even indicate that the manuscripts contain "in some significant and absolute way" the same poem. The valorization of WL's text is an interpretive imposition on the manuscript evidence.

28. Marchand, James W. "An Unidentified Latin Quote in Piers Plowman." MP 88 (1991): 398-400.

"Quandocumque ingemuerit peccator, onmes iniquitates eius non recordabor amplius," found at (Skeat) C.8.148, derives not from Jer. 31:34, but from Pseudo-Ezekiel 33:12, where it is found verbatim. This extremely popular verse, the second most common quotation in the scholastic debate on penitence, is the locus classicus for the argument that no sin is too great to be forgiven if the sinner but repent; it is often applied to Mary Magdalen, who forms the immediate context of WL's citation.

29. Mehl, Dieter. "Piers Plowman and Intertextuality." Poetica (Japan) 32 (1990):8-24.

WL's use of Latin quotations consciously creates an intertextual relationship in a poem that attempts to bridge the gap between traditional manifestations of truth and the apparent inability of mankind to accept and act on it. PPl, a book "against a simple and above all theoretical use of texts," often uses Latin quotations to suggest the disparity of word and action, preaching and being, The B text, much more intertextually complex than C, exhibits surprisingly different attitudes toward Scripture -while its authority is never questioned, WL is always suspicious of misquoting, misapplying, and misexplicating. WL's way of translating Scripture into his poem can be seen as an analogy of the Incarnation, with poetic discourse attempting to recreate the activity of Divine Grace in society.

30. Miller, Martyn John. "Meed, Mercede and Piers Plowman: A Reexamination of the Grammatical Metaphor, C.3,332-405." Diss. University of Georgia. DAI 52 (1991): 2138A.

31. Morey, James H. "The Fall in Particulate." YLS 5 (1991): 91-97.

The layering of evil spirits -some winding up in the air, some on earth, some in hell-found in all three versions (A.1.114, B.1.125, C. 1. 126) is explained with reference to a tradition of a less precipitate fall of the angels imagined as snowflakes, as in Cleanness and the ME Fall and Passion. The imagery of evil spirits as falling particulate matter is related to that of "motes in the sunbeam," itself an outgrowth of the tradition of commentary on Wisdom 11:21, according to which anything without number could be considered alien to the kingdom of heaven.

32. Overstreet, Samuel A. "Langland's Elusive Plowman." Traditio 45 (1989-90): 257-341.

In the Visio, Piers functions as a fairly literal plowman, an ideal honest laborer and, at the highest level of abstraction, as the allegorical servant of Truth. His unity of meaning can be explained through an understanding of the figurative processes of vernacular allegory, with Jean de Meun's Amis providing the closest correspondence to Piers, in his role of a particular person and at the same time a representative of a social type and exponent of a particular ideology. In the Tree of Charity scene Piers represents the divine quality of character demonstrated by Christ in his assumption of human nature; this quality, expressed through willing and patient poverty, shows Will the meaning of charity and, in the use of the three staves, the difference between forgivable sins and irremissible loss of charity. In B.19-20 the allegory aims not to identify Piers with any particular level of ecclesiastical hierarchy, but to demonstrate the necessity that occupants of ecclesiastical offices practice the values of treuthe epitomized by the plowman. In all his appearances, Piers represents the moral idea founded on the character of God, which is patient poverty of heart.

33. Patterson, Lee. Chaucer and the Subject of History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. 392-97.

The Confession scene revises earlier forms of the penitential process in which sins are presented as deeds or habits; to WL they are symptoms of an inward condition. In the confession of the sins we see the transformation from the old self as it is extinguished in the words spoken; yet the transformation is thwarted as the "suffering that is sin itself preempts and absorbs the contritional impulse," and sin destroys its own cure. But 3even 3eld-a3eyn and Robert the Ryfeler show through their repentance that despair can be overcome.

34. Pearsall, Derek. "'Lunatyk 1ollares' in Piers Plowman." Boitani and Torti (no. 6) 163-78.

In C.8 Hunger's response to Piers urges discrimination in charity while recognizing an obligation in society that no one should starve. C.9 argues that charity must positively seek out the truly needy while maintaining a ban on professional beggary. Yet the able but feeble-minded "lunatyk lollares" are praised as exemplars of truly spiritual beggary and divine recklessness, idiots (opposed to manics and melancholics) whose lack of wit puts them under God's protection and thus affords them access to powers of knowledge and prophecy. In their description, WL consciously uses a vocabulary that recalls satire of gyrovagi and friars, in order to interrogate the traditional values of society and religion embodied in such diction.

35. Pearsall, Derek, ed. Studies in the Vernon Manuscript. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990.

36. Robinson, Fred C. "Robert E. Kaske." YLS 5 (1991): 1-5.

A remembrance of the scholar (d. August 8, 1989) to whose memory YLS 5 is dedicated.

37. Ruffing, John. "The Crucifixion Drink in Piers Plowman B. 18 and C.20." YLS 5 (1991): 99-109.

Pace K-D, the reference in B. 18.50-53 to the crucifixion drink as Christ's deeth-yvel ("fatal illness", "death") is authorial, although the drink is described in C.20 as a device to prolong Christ's life. The differing versions reflect the paradox of the Crucifixion -life achieved through death-and relate to Satan's desire to undo that paradox. WL's crucifixion drink refers to the acetum given Christ in the Gospels and in the pseudo-gospel of Nicodemus; this drink, by itself or identified with that of Matt. 27:34, works against the devil's purposes by hastening Christ's death and thus the devil's defeat at the Harrowing of Hell. The change of purpose of the drink in the C text, in which the earlier reference to the dream of Pilate's wife is omitted, serves as the only concrete manifestation of the devil's desire to prolong Jesus's life.

38. St-Jacques, Raymond. "Langland's Christus Medicus Image and the Structure of Piers Plowman." YLS 5 (1991): 111-27.

The familiar image of Christ as physician serves to foreground one of Holy Church's major themes in the association of treacle with love as a symbol of the Incarnation (B.1.148-52 and cf. B.18.152-57) and in the Samaritan's treatment of the wounded man (B. 17). It serves as a unifying image in tracing the development of Will in his seminal encounters with Imaginatif, Haukyn, and Anima; the image receives illumination from Holy Church's association of medicine, health, and leechcraft with poverty and contrition, but it also points forward to Will's spiritual epiphany in B. 18. The image supports a key allegory of the Incarnation, that of Piers teaching Christ medicine so that, wounded by the devil, he may care for himself; and it provides a basic metaphor for B.20 (the piercing of the defense of Unity) in its association of sin with sickness, and penance with a healing salve.

39. Schless, Howard H. "The Background of Allegory: Langland and Dante." YLS 5 (1991): 129-42.

Dante makes a person representative of some human aspect, a symbol or embodiment of a pattern of behavior; WL personifies a human aspect and places that allegorical representation in a more or less real setting. Dante seeks to show "the historical representative of a quality in an eternal condition"; WL wants to show the eternal quality realistically in an historical, representative world. Hence there is no sense of time change between dreams in PPl, while in the Commedia vision and the world are kept separate. PPl defines the allegorical figure in its setting and context, and our understanding of a character depends on our accumulating experiences of the figure, e.g., Piers and Conscience.

40. Shepherd, Geoffrey. Poets and Prophets: Essays on Medieval Studies. Ed. T. A. Shippey and John Pickles. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990.

Reprints, inter alia, "The Nature of Alliterative Poetry in Late Medieval England," 173-92 (originally published in Proceedings of the British Academy 56 [1970], 57-76) and "Poverty in Piers Plowman," 193-214 (originally published in Social Relations and Ideas: Essays in Honour of R. H. Hilton, ed. T. H. Aston, et al. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 169-89]).

41. Steinberg, Theodore L. Piers Plowman and Prophecy: An Approach to the C-Text. Garland Studies in Medieval Literature 5. New York and London: Garland, 1991.

WL was greatly influenced by the biblical books of the prophets (chiefly the major prophets and especially Isaiah), considered in their true sense of pointing out sin and urging repentance rather than predicting future events. The prophets balance individual with social responsibility, and closely tie together the religious, political and moral, as does WL. All express unwillingness to become prophets; none is mystical or predominantly apocalyptic. The situation of fourteenth-century England parallels that described in the prophetic books with regard to the corruption of rulers, priests and people punished by God with natural disasters. PPl shares with Wycliffite thought the primacy of the biblical text and an attempt to reform, and Wyclif is seen as a persecuted prophet.

WL's humble approach to the role of prophet has good biblical precedent, and his description of God's minstrels is similar to the role played by individual prophets. His sleep is best seen as the image of prophetic visions, rather than sloth or narcolepsy. The call to prophecy comes with a sense of isolation; the "autobiographical passage" of C.5 can be profitably compared to Isaiah's description of his call (ch. 6).

Like WL, Isaiah uses allegorical names, includes personifications of the Four Daughters of God, and (ch. 29) provides an analogue to the speech of Book. The opening vision of PPl expands and develops Isaiah 1:3-6, 11-14. The Vitae are largely based on Isaiah 1:17-18. C.2-4 make vivid Isaiah 1:24; C.6-7, the confession of the sins, recall Isaiah 1:18; the Pardon scene relates to Isaiah 1:17-20, and the fact that it is sent to a plowman perhaps shows the influence of Isaiah 28:24-26. WL's message, like the prophets', is recognition and reform, not the enunciation of doctrine.

42. Stock, Lorraine Kochanske. "Parable, Allegory, History, and Piers Plowman." YLS 5 (1991): 143-64.

The tension between allegory and interpretation in parables suggested to the Middle Ages allegory and the exemplum, though for certain New Testament parables the interpretation is supplied, whereas allegory invites the reader to intuit meanings beyond the literal. The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matt. 13:24-30), one of the most allegorical parables, informs many of the themes, metaphors, and structural elements of PPl. WL makes direct allusion to the parable in the opening and closing passus, and its influence is felt in the poem's agricultural setting; its emphasis on patience as a means of withstanding temptation; apocalyptic overtones; and veiled allusions to the Lollard heresy. Like Ezekiel, the progenitor of all apocalyptic parabolists, WL connects current events to their origins and their future resolutions; like the biblical parables, PPI's visions do not easily yield their hermeneutical solutions.

43. Sturges, Robert S. "Textual Scholarship: Ideologies of Literary Production." Exemplaria 3 (1991): 108-31, esp. 118, 125.

Modern understandings of structural unity and integrity cannot be applied to medieval texts like PPl that were composed through the rearrangement of fragments of the Bible and other authoritative works in a new context to create a new work. K-D's rejection of recension in favor of a reconstruction of the author's original "through a kind of intuitive leap of faith in his or her own learning and taste" resembles the practice of medieval scribes who created new versions of a work from a combination of old versions and their own sense of "what a work ought to say."

44. Thorne, J. B. "Piers or Will: Confusion of Identity in the Early Reception of Piers Plowman." MÆ 60 (1991): 273-84.

Pace Skeat, confusion between the characters Will and Piers existed prior to Crowley's editions of 1550. Three manuscripts of the A text, one of B, and fourteen of C offer a rubric in the form visio Wilelmi de petro plouhman, yet many manuscripts have no rubrics that mention William, and ten have rubrics that suggest the vision is Piers's. Marginal notes in two manuscripts explicitly confuse the identities of Piers and Will, and interpolations in passus 6 of Huntington MS. HM 114 extend a speech of Piers with material from Will's narration corresponding to C.9.66-281 and C.Prol.91-127. Ipleyne Piers (slightly antedating Crowley's editions) has Piers Plowman assuming activities which in PPl are distributed between Piers and Will, while at the end of the Plowman's Tale the plowman is discovered to be the writer of the work.

45. Turville-Petre, Thorlac. "The Relationship of the Vernon and Clopton Manuscripts." Pearsall, Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (no. 35). 29-44, esp. 30, 35, 40-41.

PPl was originally bound in the Clopton manuscript with a text of Mandeville's Travels (Defective Version) as it was included in four other manuscripts, including one, Harley 3954, which is otherwise composed of religious works.

46. Twomey, Michael W. "Christ's Leap and Mary's Clean Catch in Piers Plowman B.12.136-44a and C.14.81-88a." YLS 5 (1991): 165-74.

Behind the striking personification allegory of these passages lies the advent of Christ, expressed through his Incarnation and Nativity, with the imagery of leaping having originated in patristic exegesis of Cant. 2:8. That the Incarnation brought into the world love which raised human scientia to the level of divine sapientia associates Christ's leap with the establishment of the Church, since clergy derives its validity from its relationship to Christ. Like Honorius Augustodunensis, WL emphasizes Christ's passing over the worldly (the hills of Cant. 2:8 representing the Pharisees) to reveal himself to the humble. The clerks who find love lodged in cleanness are pastores, the word later to be revealed as a pun on the shepherds of the Nativity and the clergy of the Church. Clennesse in B. 12.141 / C. 14.86 shows WL having transformed the virtue from ecclesiological to Marian significance, by which cleanness catching love describes the institution of the clergy via the Nativity of Christ.

47. Vaughan, Míceál. "'Til I Gan Awake': The Conversion of Dreamer into Narrator in Piers Plowman B." YLS 5 (1991): 175-92.

The confessional form of the opening of PPl presupposes that its speaker has achieved contrition necessary for a valid confession; the point at which this has occurred, however, is not the Easter awakening, the importance of which is shown not to have been assimilated in the dreamer's subsequent actions. Will nowhere fulfills the canonical requirement for a Lenten confession and there is no Easter communion. The dreamer's perspective has undergone no radical shift by the end of B.18, and Will still requires the instruction of Conscience. B.20.383, with its main alliteration on gan, suggests a distinctly climactic, actively penitential emphasis. Moral laxity, often associated with sleep, gives way at the end of B.20 to uninterrupted waking, and memorial written records of B.19 are replaced by confession of mouth.

48. Weldon, James. "Sabotaged Text or Textual Ploy?: The Christ-Knight Metaphor in Piers Plowman." Florilegium 9 (1987): 113-23.

Although WL appears to undermine his allegory by over-valuing the concrete in the metaphor of the Christ-Knight at the expense of its combinative functions as expression of the theological, social, and liturgical, he is in fact extending the chivalric metaphor along familiar fourteenth-century lines: he modifies the erotic element, develops the motifs (present in the Ancrene Riw1e) of the response to the suffering knight as an image of the redemption, and stresses the recognition of Christ's lordly status in the repeated patterns of kneeling and naming that are structured around a textual concordance supplied by Phil. 2:5-11.

49. Aers, David. Community, Gender, and Individual Identity: English Writing 1360-1430. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Rev. R. W. Hanning, Speculum 66 (1991): 368-70; Peggy A. Knapp, Envoi 2 (1990): 269-73; H. L. Spencer, RES ns 42 (1991): 89-91.

50. Alford, John A., ed. A Companion to Piers Plowman. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1988. Rev. Thomas D. Hill, Anglia 109 (1991): 490-94.

51. Alford, John A., and M. Teresa Tavormina, eds. The Yearbook of Langland Studies 2 (1988). East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1988. Rev. Thomas D. Hill, Anglia 109 (1991): 490-94; Myra Stokes, RES ns 42 (1991): 91-92.

52. Alford, John A., and M. Teresa Tavormina, eds. The Yearbook of Langland Studies 3 (1989). East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1989. Rev. S. S. Hussey, N&Q ns 38 (1991): 35 7; Seth Lerer, TLS 4 January 1991: 17.

53. Burrow, John A. Middle English Literature.- British Academy Gollancz Lectures. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Rev. Bella Millett, N&Q ns 38 (1991): 94-95.

54. Davlin, Mary Clemente. A Game of Heuene.- Word Play and the Meaning of Piers Plowman B. Piers Plowman Studies 7. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1989. Rev. J. A. Burrow, RES ns 42 (1991): 249-50; Mary C. Carruthers, SAC 13 (1991): 186-88; G. Schmitz, Archiv 228 (1991): 137-41.

55. Donaldson, E. Talbot, trans. Will's Vision of Piers Plowman. Edited, introduced, and annotated by Elizabeth D. Kirk and Judith H. Anderson. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1990. Rev. Ruth M. Ames, YLS 5 (1991): 193-96; Seth Lerer, TLS 4 January 1991: 17.

56. Donatelli, Joseph M. P., ed. Death and Liffe. Speculum Anniversary Monographs 15. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1989. Rev. Helen Barr, MÆ 60 (1991): 304-05; A. S. G. Edwards, YLS 5 (1991): 196-99; T. Turville-Petre, Speculum 66 (1991): 392-94.

57. Godden, Malcolm. The Making of Piers Plowman. London and New York: Longman, 1990. Rev. Alison Finlay, English 39 (1990): 253-58; Seth Lerer, TLS 4 January 1991: 17; A. A. MacDonald, ES 72 (199 1): 562-63.

58. Kane, George, ed. Piers Plowman.- The A Version. Rev. ed. London: Athlone Press; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Rev. A. V. C. Schmidt, RES ns 42 (1991): 436-37.

59. Kane, George, and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds. Piers Plowman: The B Version. Rev. ed. London: Athlone Press; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Rev. A. V. C. Schmidt, RES ns 42 (1991): 436-37.

60. Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn. Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Rev. Barbara Newman, YLS 5 (1991): 199-202.

61. Lynch, Kathryn. The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy, and Literary Form. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. Rev. John J. Fleming, Envoi 2 (1990): 118-21; James Weldon, Criticism 33 (1991): 257-63; Jon Whitman, Speculum 66 (1991): 440-42.

62. Pearsall, Derek. An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Langland. New York, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990. Rev. Vincent DiMarco, YLS 5 (1991): 202-06; James Simpson, N&Q ns 38 (1991): 358-59.

63. Raabe, Pamela. Imitating God: The Allegory of Faith in Piers Plowman B. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1990. Rev. Patti Quattrin, Religion & Literature 23 (1991): 99- 100.

64. Salter, Elizabeth. English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Rev. C. David Benson, Speculum 66 (1991): 689-9 1; T. Turville-Petre, RES ns 52 (1991): 87-88.

65. Scase, Wendy. Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Rev. Lawrence Clopper, Envoi 2 (1990): 438-46; Robert Worth Frank, Jr., SAC 11 (1991): 232-35; T. Turville-Petre, RES ns 42 (1991):562-63.

66. Schmidt, A. V. C. The Clerkly Maker: Langland's Poetic Art. Piers Plowman Studies 4. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer; Wolfeboro, NH: Boydell & Brewer, 1987. Rev. Willi Erzgräber, Anglia 109 (1991): 197-99; J. S. Wittig, Speculum 66 (1991): 237-39.

67. Simpson, James. Piers Plowman.- An Introduction to the B-text. London and New York: Longman, 1990. Rev. John M. Bowers, MÆ 60 (1991): 305-06; Alison Finlay, English 39 (1990): 253-58; Seth Lerer, TLS 4 January 1991: 17.

68. Trigg, Stephanie, ed. Wynnere and Wastoure. EETS os 297. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Rev. A. S. G. Edwards, YLS 5 (1991): 196-99; Edward Wilson, N&Q ns 52 (1991): 525-27.

69. Vitto, Cindy L. The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature. Transactions of the American Philosophical Sociey. Vol. 79, part 5. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1989. Rev. J. S. Ryan, Parergon ns 9 (1991): 180-81; E. Gordon Whatley, YLS 5 (1991): 206-09.