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Chamberlin's focal point for this synthesis is the concept of ambiguity, which has played an important role in the liberal arts tradition and in medieval discourses regarding reading and preaching - discourses that are fundamental to Langland's poetic ways with words. His work takes its place among other recent attempts to retrieve medieval literary theory, making it possible for it to inform the reading of medieval literature, but places this theory within a particularly wide context. Chamberlin claims that the excess of meaning ambiguity gives language is at least as important to the understanding of Piers Plowman and other medieval texts as is allegory. He deals with lexical ambiguity and the ambiguity of words-as-words - in which words themselves are taken as objects - offering linguistic, philosophical, and historical perspectives on these subjects. How ambiguity works in Langland's poetry is explained in close analysis of a number of passages from the poem. Chamberlin's overview of the historical development of the concept of ambiguity pays special attention to the doctrines of Augustine and the twelfth-century masters. He elucidates these by reference to similar ideas from Romantic and twentieth-century theorists, providing a coherent view of language that stands as an alternative to structuralist and post-structuralist views.

Ambiguity in literature. --- Poetics --- History --- Aesthetics, Medieval. --- Langland, William, --- Aesthetics. --- Medieval aesthetics --- Langland, Robert, --- Langland, Uĭli︠a︡m,

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English language --- -Rhetoric, Medieval --- Germanic languages --- Verb --- Langland, William --- -Versification --- Rhetoric, Medieval --- Versification --- Langland, William, --- Langland, Robert, --- Langland, Uĭli︠a︡m, --- Versification.

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Allegory --- Christian poetry, English (Middle) --- -Personification in literature --- Symbolism in literature --- History and criticism --- Langland, William --- -Technique --- -History and criticism --- Allegory. --- History and criticism. --- Langland, William, --- Technique. --- Personification in literature --- Langland, Robert, --- Langland, Uĭli︠a︡m,

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Christian poetry, English (Middle) --- English language --- Charity in literature. --- Figures of speech. --- Imagery --- Speech, Figures of --- Tropes --- Rhetoric --- Symbolism --- History and criticism. --- Style. --- Figures of speech --- Langland, William, --- Langland, Robert, --- Langland, Uĭli︠a︡m, --- Literary style. --- Germanic languages

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This book addresses the need for scholarly attention to the field of alternative, non-Augustinian apocalypticism and its implications for the study of Piers Plowman. Kathryn Kerby-Fulton discusses the major prophets and visionaries of such alternative traditions, who are characterised by their denunciation of clerical abuses, the urging of religious reform, and an ultimate historical optimism. Her book offers a proposal for the importance of such traditions, particularly as represented in the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, to the understanding of Langland's visionary mode and reformist ideology. Dr Kerby-Fulton also explores the relevance of the prophetic mentality fostered by Joachite thought, and the reactionary response which it triggered in antimendicant eschatology. Above all, this book provides a stimulating challenge to assumptions that Langland's views of the course and end of history are wholly conventional, or easily explained by Augustinian eschatology. The outcome of this study of contexts for Piers Plowman suggests that Langland's position in relation to different apocalyptic traditions was at once more sophisticated and more original than scholars have hitherto realised.

Apocalyptic literature --- End of the world in literature --- Reformation --- Pre-Reformation --- Christian sects, Medieval --- Church history --- History and criticism --- Early movements --- Langland, William, --- Langland, Robert, --- Langland, Uĭli︠a︡m, --- Religion. --- Arts and Humanities --- Literature --- End of the world in literature. --- History and criticism. --- Early movements.