The main aim of this book is to convince the reader of Piers Plowman's centrality in any account of the literary and cultural history of the later Middle Ages. Brief expositions of the relevant background are provided for readers with limited experience of medieval culture.

Throughout the poem he considers such questions as what genre is being practised here?, what claims to authority does such a genre make?, what aspect of the self does it appeal to?, what social or ecclesiastical institution is it produced by and does it support? and finally, in what ways are authoritative genres found by Langland to be inadequate. The author aims to address the argument to readers who might have no previous experience of medieval culture; a secondary function of the book is therefore to provide brief expositions of any relevant backgrounds which need to be understood before an understanding of Langland's enterprise is possible.

Introduction: the poem and its author
Langland's immediate poetic context
"Discourse"
schematic structure of the poem. Part 1 The first vision - prologue and passus I: literary "Truthe"
theological "Truthe"
social "Truthe". Part 2 The first vision - passus II-IV: personification allegory
mede and social "Truthe"
mede and legal "Truthe". Part 3 The second vision: passus V-VII: ecclesiastical satire
theological themes - the reward of works, a wage or a gift?
conclusion - the crisis of justice. Part 4 The third vision - passus VIII-XII: structure as determined by psychology
style
theme
the inner dream - fortune, lewtee, scripture, Trajan
deconstruction
imaginatyf. Part 5 The fourth vision - passus XIII-XIV: educational transitions
poetic transitions
social transitions. Part 6 The fifth vision - passus XV-XVIII: Anima - the whole soul
Anima and the Church
Anima and charity - Langland's historical sense of the self and of charity
the inner dream. Part 7 Visions six, seven, and eight - passus XVIII-XX: the sixth vision, passus XVIII
the seventh vision, passus XIX - Will's Biblical "Reading" and the liturgy, the Apostolic Church and its crafts
the eighth vision, passus XX.