The Naming of Will in Piers Plowman.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Cooper, Helen
- Source
- Chaucer Review. Oct2023, Vol. 58 Issue 3/4, p456-467. 12p.
- Subject
- *AUTOBIOGRAPHY
*PSYCHOLOGY
*CHRISTIANS
*PERSONIFICATION in the Bible
*CORPORATE finance
- Language
- ISSN
- 0009-2002
In support of Derek Pearsall's acceptance that the C Text of Piers Plowman represents Langland's final thoughts on the poem, this article surveys the scarcity of any clear use of the name "Will" for the dreamer in the earlier texts, in contrast to Holicherche's naming of him in C 1. It argues that the present near-universal assumption that the dreamer is likewise named Will through a series of autobiographical signatures encoded in the B Text relies almost entirely on our reading back from C. It was Langland's developing ideas for his dreamer that enabled him to make the identification that is now basic to our understanding of his project in all its various versions—an understanding that was not available to the original readers of the previous texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]