The Book of Piers Ploughman
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘The Book of Piers Ploughman’
In The Copybook
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘The Book of Piers Ploughman’
In The Copybook
Will Langland, a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, dreams he is looking for his old friend Piers the Ploughman in Jerusalem just when Christ rides in on a donkey.
William Langland’s ‘Book of Piers the Ploughman’ is a late fourteenth-century dream sequence that tumbles together Christian reflection with social commentary much as John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ would later do. In Passus 18, Will has fallen asleep during Lent, and his dream takes him confusedly to Palm Sunday, a week before Easter.
In ‘Do-bet,’ the sequel to his popular ‘Vision of Piers the Ploughman,’ Will Langland dreams about the trial of Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate, and what followed.
In William Langland’s dream-narrative ‘The Book of Piers the Ploughman’, we have seen Jesus Christ enter Jerusalem riding on an ass, but looking more to Will’s eyes like a knight entering the lists to joust on behalf of mankind. Now the Tournament begins in earnest, with Roman Governor Pontius Pilate sitting in the umpire’s chair.
Will Langland tells how after the crucifixion, the soul of Christ went down to Hades to fetch Piers the Ploughman and the rest of hopeless humanity.
In William Langland’s dream-narrative ‘The Book of Piers the Ploughman’, we have seen Jesus Christ enter Jerusalem, and seen him crucified. But Lucifer and his devils are anxious. From their fastness in Hades, surrounded by the souls of the dead, they see a distant light; they double-bar the doors and plug every chink in the mortar but closer and closer it comes, until it stands before the very gates.