scholarly journals Hunger and the Clerical Canine: The Dog as Metaphor in Piers Plowman B

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 67-91
Author(s):  
Rosanne Gasse
Keyword(s):  
Piers Plowman ◽  
Piers Plowman B

Scripture in "Piers Plowman" B

1961 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 352-362
Author(s):  
Anne Havens Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Piers Plowman ◽  
Piers Plowman B

KYNDE KNOWYNG AS A MAJOR THEME IN PIERS PLOWMAN B

1971 ◽  
Vol XXII (85) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARY CLEMENTE DAVLIN
Keyword(s):  
Piers Plowman ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Piers Plowman B

PIERS PLOWMAN B, Prologue 132–8

1960 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 436-b-436
Author(s):  
BARBARA M. H. STRANG
Keyword(s):  
Piers Plowman ◽  
Piers Plowman B

Lady Meed and God's Meed: the Grammar of ‘Piers Plowman’ B 3 and C 4

Traditio ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 291-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula J. Carlson
Keyword(s):  
William Langland ◽  
Piers Plowman ◽  
The Third ◽  
Piers Plowman B ◽  
The One

When William Langland revised his poem Piers Plowman for the second time, he added a long, intricate analogy to the third passus. In all three versions of Piers, the dreamer, Will, finds himself in this early passus at a king's court and witnesses a debate between two figures, Lady Meed and Conscience, about the appropriateness of their possible marriage. The B text, the one scholars most often discuss, presents the would-be bride, Lady Meed, arguing that regardless of their nature the gifts she dispenses at court are integral to the smooth operation of society. These gifts, then, are honorable, and Lady Meed's nature need not prevent her marriage to Conscience. The reluctant Conscience, however, distinguishes between two kinds of meed, one holy and one corrupt. He holds that Lady Meed represents only the corrupt meed and so is intrinsically immoral. Her ‘gifts’ and ‘payments,’ he says, are not proportionate to desert, as she claims, but are instead bribes and payoffs. Rather than easing the functioning of society, they subvert it. On these grounds, Conscience refuses to marry Lady Meed. The king before whom Lady Meed and Conscience argue is initially torn about the nature of Lady Meed, as indeed readers of the poem have remained. In what appears to be an effort to clarify Conscience's argument, Langland adds almost a hundred lines to the debate in the C text.

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