"Piers the Ploughman"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the allegory in "Piers the Ploughman" enables ideas to battle with one another as if they were human, and the conflict they produce gives the reader a sense of what was most important to the poet and what was seen as the most important problem of his time, as well as what would be the best solution.

From the Paper:

"Hesiod in ancient Greece made similar observations about the anarchy of his society, suggesting that at some level, society is always on the brink of anarchy for those who hold deep-seated beliefs and who believe that those ideas should shape every action and inform every institution. In Langland's time, those ideas were religious and were given added weight by association with the Church and with God even in times when the Church itself, in the form of its leadership, seems to be failing in its mission. In our own time, the same sort of concerns can be raised, with some sort of authority suggested as the solution to the problem."

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