Abstract
Nicolette Zeeman has provided a detailed study of Will's encounters with personified figures in the third vision of Piers Plowman. She argues against a positive linear development or education of the will in the poem, highlighting instead a reiterative structure based on encounters shaped by desire, rebuke, and loss. The introduction describes several of these ‘episodes’, while Chapter 1 seeks to contextualize the emphasis on failure and loss within medieval discussions of sin, temptation, and tribulation. Chapters 2 to 5 explore the backgrounds in medieval religious discourse for Langland's portrayal of Will (both ‘sensualitas’ and ‘voluntas’), Thought (‘the preliminary cogitative functions of the soul’), Study (‘studium’, with connotations of both discipline and desire), Clergy and Scripture (‘Christian teaching and its texts’), and ‘kynde’. Chapters 6 and 7 return from the theological background of the third vision to a closer engagement with the text of Piers Plowman, discussing the significance of ‘clergy’ and ‘kynde’ in the inner dream of passus 11, Will's encounter with Imaginatif, and Conscience's feast with Patience in vision four. The last chapter considers the place of desire in the poem as a whole and concludes with the final narrative of loss in Conscience's departure from Unity.
Published Version
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