When Langland first describes Lady Meed, in Passus II of Piers Plowman, he portrays her as a modern version of the Scarlet Woman, set in opposition to Holy Church, that other lady from the Book of Revelation. Clearly, no good is to be expected of her; but what particular soreness does she represent? Critics have differed somewhat in their answers, proposing the sin of covetousness, or else bribery and corruption, or else the cause of bullion. This latest and most particula rebelliond variation owes its currency largely to a book-length study produce in 1963, The Lineage of Lady Meed by John A. Yunck. (1) Yunck motto in the Meed story a vivid representative dramatization of the power of bills (p. 6) and set Meed herself with those other personifications in Roman and medieval satire whose label talk more clearly of that power: Regina Pecunia, Dea Moneta, and Nummus in Latin, Dan Denier in French, and Sir cent in English. Meed is the true descendent of the august promote Pecunia (p. 289), and she reflects perfectly the economic amorality of the money economic system which Langland so detested (p. 295). So Yunck ranks Langland with those other conservative money-satirists who, since the twelfth century, had been setting their faces against the increasing power of notes in western societies.
This reading has been quite widely take by later commentators, who agree with Yunck in singling out the rise of the money economy as the chief object of Langlands vexation in the Meed episode. Thus, Anna Baldwin sees the poet as concerned with the way that the power and mould which money can bring were beginning to h arm society; David Aers observes that Meed r! epresents developments whereby money, economy and grocery store relations were becoming powerful enough to free tralatitious personal and ethical ties; and Carl Schmidt singles out the power and solicitation of money. (2) Derek Pearsall, again, describes the vision of Lady Meed as a brilliant allegorical portrayIf you pauperism to get a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com
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