Piers Plowman’s Lyric Poetics

Abstract

This article explores how the lyric forms and themes incorporated into Piers Plowman direct the poem’s investigation of the proper epistemological foundations of vernacular making. Lyric varieties such as the chanson d’aventure, which Langland periodically invokes, serve as more than mere stylistic embellishments; rather, these lyric passages model experiential modes of composition and lectio that Piers Plowman repeatedly contrasts with more authoritative textual traditions. This tension between sensory and revelatory forms of textual engagement is particularly pronounced in the poem’s third and fourth visions, where Langland’s lyric interpolations pair with Will’s epistemological inquiries to make a case for the didactic and ethical efficacy of sensory and extraclergial forms of literary ‘making’: vernacular poetry’s potential, in other words, to supplement and direct a life guided by Christian ideals.