Protest and Complaint: The Piers Plowman Tradition in England and Beyond

Sponsoring Organization(s)

International Piers Plowman Society

Organizer Name

Michael Johnston

Organizer Affiliation

Purdue Univ.

Presider Name

Michael Johnston

Paper Title 1

Ironically Unforeseen Political Complaints in Piers Plowman's Prophecies

Presenter 1 Name

Kimberly Fonzo

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Texas-San Antonio

Paper Title 2

The Piers Plowman Tradition, Reformist Style, and the New World

Presenter 2 Name

William Rhodes

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of Pittsburgh

Paper Title 3

Sores and Salves: Truth and the Body Poetic in Mum and the Sothsegger

Presenter 3 Name

Spencer Strub

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Harvard Univ.

Start Date

9-5-2019 1:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 1325

Description

This session invites papers on the traditions that produced and were subsequently influenced by Piers Plowman, and that in turn influenced lollard and other writers. Piers Plowman drew on currents of political poetry, social protest, satire, prophecy, and complaint, not only in English, but also in the Latin and French traditions. Langland’s poem inspired subsequent religious and political writing that was strikingly adaptable and enduring, taken up by English reformists and political critics in the fifteenth century and well into the early modern period, in both manuscript and print. This panel seeks to represent new work in this tradition, on topics including (but not limited to) the genres of complaint; the portability of satire between languages and traditions; alliterative keywords; agrarian allegory; voicing and personification, etc. Michael Johnston