The book on Spenser's Book I and Langland is by Leslie-Anne Crowley, THE
QUEST FOR HOLINESS: SPENSER'S DEBT TO LANGLAND, Milan: Arcipelago, 1992.
With Chaucer, Langland was Spenser's 'original', but the relationship
wasn't treated because when the historical study of Spenser began in the
early twentieth century, he wasn't sufficiently 'classical'. Chaucer could
not be ignored as the father-figure but Langland was definitely lower
class, and the nature of his influence on Spenser cannot be traced by the
usual scholarly means, such as echoes, etc. But see the commentary in the
revised Longman, eg, the introduction to A Letter to Raleigh. Bert
At 02:05 AM 2001-11-05 -0600, you wrote:
> Piers Plowman on the Faerie Queene--perhaps just Book I. I read a
>review of the book somewhere, and now I can't find it. Can anyone help me
>out with this? I remember that the book's publisher was in Greece. The
>reviewer was perturbed by the author's use of modern editions of Piers
>rather than the 16th century printings Spenser might have known. About
>a year ago, A. C. Hamilton wrote to the list: "It is yet to be
>acknowledged that as much as Chaucer, Langland was Spenser's 'original'. It
> would be interesting to know from students of English literary history
>just why Langland has never been acknowledged to be as central as
>Chaucer." I've been thinking about this off and on; here's what I've come
>up with. I'd like to think Langland was that central to Spenser, but I
>can't find evidence to support such a view. pattern of
>archetypal biblical images and commonplaces?" Plowman's Tale in
>SC. This is a poem that takes Langland's reformist plowman figure and
>attempts to pass him off as a Chaucerian tale-teller. Could this mean that
>as far as the PlT goes, Chaucer and Langland are and are not sources for
>SC? Dan Knauss
>Marquette University, Department of English
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A.C.Hamilton
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Cappon Professor Emeritus
Queen's University, Canada
Phone & Fax: 613- 544-6759
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