Plan: Introduction

II. Stylistic devices used in “Piers Plowman”
The poem is a theological allegory in which the speaker, Will, experiences ten dream-visions, including two dreams within dreams, on his quest for a good Christian life. The dream-vision was a common literary form at the time, employed by Chaucer and others. Langland combined it with other genres: the quest, social satire, beast fable, debate, and sermon. It is structured as a journey. Each chapter after the prologue is called a passus, which is Latin for step. In his first dream-vision, Will describes a ‘fair field full of folk,’ a wide variety of characters living in the everyday realm, which lies between heaven and hell, represented by a tower and a dungeon respectively. When the poem was first printed, it was divided into two sections: "The Vision of Piers the Plowman," and "The Life of Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best."
On his quest, Will is diverted wildly, as he encounters hundreds of characters from every walk of life: prostitutes, clergy, lawyers, pilgrims, drunkards, judges, thieves, vagabonds, bankers, sheriffs, wastrels, scholars, con-men, and judges, among many others. The text also reflects Christian prejudice against Jews and Muslims in the Medieval period. The scope of the poem is ambitious, rich, and often humorous. It explores the proper roles of various parts of secular and religious society, such as the government, the nobility, the peasantry, the papacy, and the clergy. In this, it addresses issues that are perennially urgent: relations amongst classes, nations, family members, the secular and religious worlds, and humans and nature. It touches on the topics of taxation, trade, war, criminal justice, finance, food supply, medicine, heredity, marriage, child-rearing, and education.
Piers Plowman is committed to Truth and divine justice. The poem rails against corruption passionately and angrily, and has contempt for hypocrisy. It grapples with the different levels of economic and political power among social actors including the traditional three estates of feudal society: the Church, the nobility, and the peasantry, and the new classes that arose in the late Middle Ages: traveling laborers, the urban mercantile class, and intellectuals such as the poet himself.
Many abstract qualities, such as Truth, Charity, and Conscience, morph into and out of personified form in the poem. As each quality carries many connotations, they intertwine to create rich, complex imagery. Piers Plowman is himself a complex allegorical character. He appears sporadically throughout the poem as an ideal peasant laborer, friend of Truth, founder of the Church, and embodiment of Christ.
The dreamer’s name, Will, is also allegorical, representing human will. Will desires to make things right with God through penance. He finds that the system doesn’t work the way that it’s supposed to—even though he seeks true penitence earnestly, he encounters false friars who grant easy absolution to get rich quickly. Corruption is endemic in the world of Piers Plowman; the effort of the poem represents hope for a cure. Will progresses from confusion to redemption and hopes for society to return to the Cardinal Virtues and to follow Christ’s commandments to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. The poem ends in crisis, with the Church lost to the forces of the Antichrist. But there is a glimmer of hope, as Conscience sets out on a new pilgrimage to once again find Piers Plowman.