English Literature / Unit 5 ENL 0406 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Alliterative Revival and Piers Plowman
Captions available
The idea
In the fourteenth century some poets revived the old unrhymed alliterative line, Gawain among them. William Langland's Piers Plowman, in that line, is an allegory told as a series of dream visions, in which the dreamer seeks figures such as Do-Well. It survives in three versions.
In practice
The old line, an allegorical dream.
Where people slip
Langland and the Gawain poet used the line, not Chaucer.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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