Middle English araten and Scenes of Condescension in Piers Plowman

Abstract

Abstract Among the English words first recorded in William Langland’s Piers Plowman is araten “reprove.” This new, or newly literary, word encapsulates a peculiar quality of Piers Plowman, its cyclical depiction of verbal combat between opponents with unequal cultural authority. The word araten is perfect for Piers Plowman and plausibly was coined to purpose. This note suggests that araten cuts both ways in Piers Plowman’s multilayered analysis of class, and more broadly that visions of reproof with their political, social, literary, and theological implications were a central form through which Langland extended the A text into the B and C versions.