ENGL 4160 - [Piers Plowman]

(crosslisted) MEDVL 4160
(HB) (LA-AS)

Not offered 2017-2018. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: students will need to have already worked with some Middle English, such as a course on Chaucer. This course may be used as one of the three pre-1800 courses required of English majors. Co-meets with ENGL 7160/MEDVL 7160.

A. Galloway.

This seminar will read and research all three “versions” of one of the most original poems from the “age of Chaucer” or any period: Piers Plowman, along with some of the short “alliterative revival” poetry most directly connected to it. The religious, social, legal, economic, biographical, and textual contexts, problems, and opportunities of this notoriously disruptive poem—the only poem quoted by revolutionaries in its period, during the Rising of 1381—will be a major focus, but we will also attend to the distinct literary and formal properties of this sprawling and frequently revised masterpiece.