ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the interplay between the modes forms the structural basis of the poem and that the contrast between the ranges of experience they can express is central to its meaning. Whether the allegory of Piers Plowman is single or multiple in significance, the mode itself suggests idealization and therefore simplification. It proposes a world of clear-cut moral distinctions; it deals in perfection of good or of evil. Conscience has in earlier episodes in the poem been a partially isolated figure, obliged because of the imperfection of the world to make choices which seemed inconvenient or even perverse to other virtuous characters. The Dowel section of the poem is particularly concerned with intellectual enquiry, the relationship between theoretical understanding and moral development, and the possible Christian attitudes towards learning. The drift towards pessimism in the last part of the poem is mainly expressed through the decline in the position of Conscience.
