My Medieval Author - William Langland

The medieval author that I’ve choose is William Langland (c. 1330 – c. 1400).  He was a medieval poet. He was born in Ledbury (Herefordshire) and used to write about religious themes as in The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman. Nowadays there are just a few manuscripts but and none of them were written by Langland hands. This poem can be found in three versions and has a simple and colloquial language powered by his directed discourse. The story begins in Malvern Hills and is a prologue of seven steps that are turned to the live of the humans in society and this includes the seven capital sins. A guy named Will, that will be the narrator of this story, sees in his dreams a tower in a hill and a fortress in a valley, and all of it represents the humankind and he starts giving a lot of examples in his narrative about this humankind. The story is divided in two parts. The first one is the part that Will, the guy that fall asleep and also the narrator of the story, offers himself to be the one that will guide the Truth. And in the second part Will starts a journey to find “Do-well, Do-bet, and Do-best”, and these three “men” can personify Christ (goodness). The complete version of The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman can be found in the internet, and can be found either in three different versions.

(Posted by Lis Machado)