ABSTRACT
Piers Plowman is one of the most difficult poems ever written: it is a work that constantly challenges but evades interpretation; and in it there is no scene that is more important or more elusive than that in which Piers tears the Pardon. Modern critics have been unanimous on one point only, that the scene has a dramatic resonance that extends far beyond the limits of passus vii and therefore that it is central to the whole meaning of the poem; on all other points their disagreement with one another ranges from the partial to the complete. The course of the action, which begins in passus v, is on the surface deceptively simple. After the repentance of society expressed in the confessions of the Seven Deadly Sins, Piers Plowman sets himself to organize a just, ordered and ideal society, in which each member will conscientiously carry out the duties appropriate to his rank or profession.
