Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Reading

• Piers the Ploughman, prologue & passus V–VI

Notes

Passus is Latin for ‘step’ (singular and plural forms are identical in appearance). In the case of Piers, think about the stages of a pilgrimage or some other holy journey. More practically, note that “passus” also functions as a stand-in for “book” (or “chapter”). So for today you need to read books 5 & 6, in addition to the prologue.

Wikipedia has a decent entry about the Malvern Hills area, where William Langland (our author) was from.