Title Background

<i>Piers Plowman</i> as Biblical Commentary.

Piers Plowman as Biblical Commentary.

PPl is clearly not a biblical commentary in any ordinary sense, but it contains commentary and can be used as commentary because it includes not only distinctiones of quotations but also explications that use such methodologies as full and partial translation, contextualization, paraphrase, and mistranslation of biblical quotations; dramatizations that interpret Scripture; and specification through names, metaphors, or other concrete language. The poem also includes conflicting commentaries resulting in reinterpretation, as in the four daughters’ dispute in Passus 18. [MCD]