I had to read this for my medieval visions class. It is difficult to get through, but once you do, the themes are interesting.

Setting aside the fascinating use of allegory, he is at once more blatant than other writers and more subtle, it was the structure that struck me this time. Will is simultaneously living his life, writing his poems and making his way to heaven. The structure echoes this in its apparent disjointedness as each vision digs deeper into Will's faith and life and widens the scope of his interests. It is in that sense a journey from Do Well to Do Best.

I listened to this as an audiobook read by Jonathan Keeble and, in this form, I would recommend it. As an allegorical text, it will - I imagine – require me to return again and again to explore it

this dream vision is immense. don't even know where to start...

I will admit that I have not read all of Piers Plowman. However, few people who are not medievalists have read all of Piers Plowman. Medieval literature in general is strange, but Piers is stranger than most, and––a greater problem for me––difficult to follow. However there are bits that are quite fascinating.

There were parts of this that I really enjoyed — like the many, many take downs of the Church and its various agents — but ultimately it got to be too tedious for me. It's a series of dreams/visions, which is all well and good, but unlike other dream stories, there's not really a larger story. The dreams don't come on a quest, per se, they're kind of the whole point. At the same time, it's almost pure allegory. Characters are named things like Conscience, Contrition, Envy, and Greed, etc. This was interesting at first, to see how these "characters" interacted with each other and what that meant for the real world. But most of the characters are this way, and they're all very one dimensional: they are what their name suggests. Finally, it's very Christian. Again, like with dream narratives, I'm okay with a Christian story if it's doled out carefully, but this just dumps it on the reader. I was expecting something closer to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with some weird bits and some obvious Christian stuff, but ol' Piers Plowman leans far in one direction, without leaving much room for an actual story.

Not entirely sure what happened but there was a guy called Will who imagined this guy Piers Plowman who was basically a common man closer to god and Christ than any clergyman or aristocrat. So yay Marxism but also confusing as hell.