Alliterative Poems

In the latter half of the 14th century a number of poems did not follow the Continental (mainly
French) literary models and conventions, but on the contrary gave new life to the native
alliterative tradition. An unknown learned poet probably working for nobles living far from
London (and from the Court) adapted old poetic forms to the new literary genres and produced
such masterpieces as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (one of the finest Middle English
Arthurian romances), and Pearl , Patience and Cleanness (three allegorical and religious poems
of great beauty). The most important writer working in this native tradition is William Langland
(c. 1330-87). He was the reputed author of a long social allegory, Piers Plowman . Details of
Langland’s life are mainly supplied by his own poem, which appeared in three versions
(apparently between 1362 and 1386). He seems to have been a learned man from
Worcestershire and to have spent his later years in London.

Piers Plowman is a complex mixture of theology and social criticism: it is especially concerned
with corruption in the Church and contemporary society and with the merits of poverty and
love. The poem is based on the dream-vision form (see Glossary ), which was very common in
medieval English poetry, and is in fact made up of a series of visions interrupted by brief
intervals during which the dreamer is awake. The poet, in this convention, pretends to have
dreamed what he describes. The prologue introduces the first vision, both conventional and
original, in which mankind – represented by ‘a fair field full of folk’ – is depicted. The time of
the year is, traditionally, spring or summer (as it is called here, though the poet speaks of ‘a
May morning’). Here we have all the essentials of the dream-vision poem: the dreamer goes
about the spring fields apparently without purpose; he lies down by a stream and he falls
asleep; he dreams a dream. The dream itself has all the characters of an allegorical vision: all
the details are functional to the idea the poet wants to express. So he looks not just in any
direction, but ‘into the east’, where the sun and life come from. Accordingly, the people he
sees come from all classes, they are representative of mankind, and they are moving between
two symbolical buildings: the beautiful tower on top of a hill, the house of the good, and the
prison tower down a deep and dark valley, the place of the bad.

The dream vision is closely connected with allegory (see Glossary ), another favourite medieval
genre, particularly since dreams had always been taken to reveal the truth; they were, in a
sense, natural allegories. Most dream visions, such as The Roman de la Rose , deal with
romantic love; Piers Plowman is concerned with theological love. Langland’s theme is the
history of Christianity as revealed in the Old and New Testaments and as it unfolds in the mind
of the dreamer, a 14th -century Christian. The poet moves with rapidity and great vividness
between these two separate worlds.