William Langland

Piers Plowman is a Middle English allegorical poem about Christian life, social justice, sin, labor, and salvation. It follows a dream vision structure rather than a simple plot, with figures such as Will, Holy Church, and Piers carrying symbolic roles.

Langland is the traditional attribution, but medieval authorship is not as cleanly documented as a modern book credit. Scholars generally connect the poem to a 14th-century writer called William Langland, while still discussing the evidence.

They are the three major versions of the poem preserved in manuscript tradition. The B-text is often the one students meet first because it is fuller than A and less heavily revised than C.

It is one of the major works of 14th-century English literature, written in alliterative verse rather than Chaucer's rhymed couplets. It also contains an early literary reference to Robin Hood, which makes it important beyond religious poetry.