[“The Ploughman from Bohemia"] is a small but significant work which has attracted considerable scholarly attention and provoked some diametrically contrasting views. There is little debate about the date of its composition, shortly after 1400, and it thus stands at an important threshold, towards the close of the Middle Ages and with the dawn of Humanism just on the horizon. Clearly a work of transition, then, it is seen by some scholars as very much the product of the Middle Ages, while others interpret it as a rejection of medieval traditions, which saw God as the focus of the universe, in favour of a new affirmation of the authority of Man. Probably it is both, just as the apparently contradictory views of its purpose can be reconciled. It is not…
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Citation: Gibbs, Marion E.. "Der Ackermann aus Böhmen". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 July 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16326, accessed 23 November 2024.]
