James K. Baxter and John Ball: a note on the source of 'Letter to Piers Plowman'

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26686/knznq.v0i0.3982

Abstract

Baxter's early poem 'Letter to Piers Plowman' includes references to characters known to us not from Langland's poem but from one of the letters of John Ball (Royal manuscript). This note identifies a likely source in which Baxter could have encountered this little-known political text.

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Author Biography

Peter Whiteford, Victoria University of Wellington

Peter Whiteford is a Professor of English literature at Victoria University of Wellington, where he has been a member of the English programme since 1991.

References

Astell, Ann W. Political Allegory in Late Medieval England. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999.

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Langland, William. The Vision of Piers Plowman. Ed. A. V. C. Schmidt. London: J. M. Dent, 1995.

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Middleton, Anne. ‘William Langland’s “Kynde name”: Authorial Signature and Social Identity in Late Fourteenth-Century England’ in Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1540. Ed. Lee Patterson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, 15-82. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520378032-002

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Walsingham, Thomas. Thomae Walsingham, quondam monachi S. Albani, Historia Anglicana. Ed. H. T. Riley. Rolls Series 28. 2 vols. London: Longman, Green, 1863-64. [Ball's Letteris found in II, 33-34.]

Warner, Lawrence. ‘Plowman traditions in late medieval and early modern writing’ in The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman. Ed. Andrew Cole and Andrew Galloway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9780511920691.015

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Published

2016-12-15