Piers Plowman Lesson Plan

Piers Plowman consists of a series of complex theological, political and other allegories. What is the value of allegory as a storytelling device?

Although some students may find the allegories in Piers Plowman too simple for their tastes, the theological, sociopolitical and moral issues being allegorized in the text are anything but. Therein lies a part of the value of allegory: when done well, it has the ability to make the complex simpler, and the obscure, clearer. This would have been especially important in the late Middle Ages, when those outside the educated, well-off magnatorial and clerical estates – the majority of England's population – were illiterate and not...