Astonishing in its cultural and theological scope William Langland's iconoclastic masterpiece
is at once a historical relic and a deeply spiritual vision probing not only the social and
religious aristocracy but also the day-to-day realities of a largely voiceless proletariat
class.E. Talbot Donaldson's translation of the text has been selected for this Norton Critical
Edition because of its skillful emulation of the original poem's distinct alliterative verse.
Selections of the authoritative Middle English text are also included for comparative
analysis.Sources and Backgrounds includes a large collection of contemporary religious and
historical documents pertaining to the poem including selections from the Douai Bible
accounts of the plague and legal statutes.Criticism includes twenty interpretive essays by
leading medievalists among them E. Talbot Donaldson George Kane Jill Mann Derek Pearsall
C. David Benson and Elizabeth D. Kirk.A Glossary and Selected Bibliography are also included.
