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- Title
Langland, Father of American Literatures.
- Authors
Bowers, John M.
- Abstract
Geoffrey Chaucer's position as "father of English literature" has been steadily challenged in recent years. This paper both proposes and interrogates the other fourteenth-century English poet William Langland's possible claims as the origin for the Puritan tradition of New England and, hence, the later traditions of American literatures--in the plural. We know that the first copy of his satirical, theological dream-vision Piers Plowman arrived in New England in 1630 with the father of Anne Bradstreet, and as a result any patriarchal genealogy is already problematic because the first author in the American family-tree was a woman. Rather than the linearity of the English tradition, America offers a sprawling mosaic of minority writings marked by spiritual restlessness, calls for social reform, and the urgent need for self-definition, all already established in the English Puritan Piers tradition. The discussion ends with Florence Converse's largely (and aptly) forgotten novel Long Will (1908) that sought to retrieve the lost life-story of the author of Piers Plowman.
- Subjects
NEW England; AMERICAN literature; LANGLAND, William, ca. 1330-ca. 1400; INFLUENCE (Literary, artistic, etc.); AMERICAN authors; ENGLISH poets; FATHERS
- Publication
Quidditas, 2023, Vol 44, p90
- ISSN
1544-9971
- Publication type
Article