Do-Not-Miss Middle English Masterpiece #3

"Do you ever stop reading that book?" -My Sister

Dear bookish friend,

Back to our countdown of my top five Middle English masterpieces. After this, I will cover five lesser-known Middle English works worth reading! Today is number three on my list… the incomparable, baffling, profound, frustrating fourteenth-century alliterative allegory Piers Plowman by William Langland.

Let’s clear the air here before I move forward. I hesitated to put Piers Plowman on this list because I remain uncertain of the value of reading it on your own, without a gifted teacher. It is hard. It is confusing. I had to read all of it three times (two of those times in a classroom with perhaps the world’s leading Piers Plowman scholar teaching it) before I was able to say that I sort of understood it.¹ It is not short, so reading thrice was a fairly serious undertaking. Just know that Piers Plowman is not everyone’s cup of tea, though it has become mine. However, I suspect many of you may be better equipped to handle it in all its strange glory than I was when I first encountered it. So I keep it on the list.