Langland's Wrath: Righteous Anger Management in The Vision of Piers Plowman

• Published in: Exemplaria (Binghamton, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2013-06, Vol.25 (2), p.130-151
• Main Author: Megna, Paul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1041-2573; 1753-3074
• DOI: 10.2752/174967813X13535106841368

The essay traces the subtle political theology of anger interspersed throughout William Langland's Piers Plowman. Piers Plowman portrays anger as morally ambiguous: although its narrator paints an unflattering portrait of Wrath in the 'Confession of the Seven Deadly Sins,' elsewhere he repeatedly attributes anger to obviously righteous characters, including St Truth, Christ, and Piers Plowman himself. Curiously, an early version of the poem, the A-text, elides Wrath's confession entirely. The essay contends first that Langland's omission of Wrath's confession in the A-text constitutes a rhetorical attempt to elicit righteous sentiment from his audience; and, secondly, that it was taken as such by the insurgents responsible for the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, particularly John Ball, who also conspicuously elides wrath in a conspiratorial 'letter' to his cabal; and, finally, that Langland responded to Ball's catastrophic appropriation by excising the eponymous Plowman's famously vexed act of tearing St Truth's pardon from the C-text, thereby monumentalizing the tragic manner in which his radical discourse ultimately produced its own reactionary censor. (Author abstract)