Really the only difficult thing about Piers Plowman is finding a good translation that is readable and hasn’t lost the original context.

I recommend that anyone trying to read it, go out and find following version:

ISBN: 9780393960112

Title: Piers Plowman: An Alliterative Verse Translation

Author: William Langland

Translator: E. Talbot Donaldson

Edited & Annotated: Elizabeth D. Kirk & Judith H. Anderson

I spent a lot of time looking through options for reading Piers Plowman, and this version is highly readable, annotated extremely well, and doesn’t seem to mess up any of the context.

Sidenote: The translator also has a pretty good Beowulf Translation, which I have also picked up and started reading.

  • SOSOBOSO@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I had never heard of it until this morning when it was featured in an episode of “The History of English Language” podcast. In it, he reads passages in the original middle English pronunciation. Very interesting stuff. William Langland really likes to shit on the king and the clergy.