威廉·兰格伦
威廉·兰格伦（William Langland，1332?-1400?年），英国诗人。传说他是《农夫皮尔斯》的作者，一部14世纪晚期的头韵体长诗。然而有些评论家认为这部作品是另一位诗人，或者另外5名诗人的著作。现代学者一般同意兰格伦至少写了这首长诗的一部分。
关于兰格伦的生平没有可靠信息。据说他在马尔文的一所修道院受教育，生活在伦敦期间完成了他大部分作品。
威廉·兰格伦是与乔叟同时代的主要诗人之一，他们的创作共同推动了14世纪英国民族文学的发展和英国民族通用语言的形成。
威廉·兰格伦的生平主要是根据他的作品来推测的。他可能出生于穷苦自由民家庭，年轻时当过牧羊人，后来来到伦敦靠唱弥撒音乐、抄写法律文件或其他临时工来维持生计，他也可能是个穷牧师。《农夫皮尔斯》（The Vision Concerning Piers the Plowman）是用中世纪梦幻故事的形式写成的教诲诗，通过描绘梦中的景象来展现中世纪英国社会各方面的生活图景，采用寓言故事来惩恶扬善。长诗分为两部分，第一部分是皮尔斯的梦境，第二部分是称为“寻求好、更好、最好”的一连串幻想。全诗由有重读音和押头韵的诗行写成。
《农夫皮尔斯》宣扬公正诚实，号召每个人——无论是国王、牧师、贵族、农夫——忠于宗教，履行宗教职责。它抨击奢侈挥霍和堕落腐化。它提倡上帝面前人人平等和诚实的劳动最为高贵，这两条原则曾鼓动了全国上下的自由民。诗篇的第一个梦境是“人头济济的田野”。五月清晨诗人卧于山野，梦见田野之中人头攒动，各种阶层和职业的人物应有尽有。农夫在辛勤劳动，而别人却坐享其成。田野的一头是灰暗的监狱塔楼，里面住着虚假和罪恶；另一头是真理城堡，里面住着上帝。人们徘徊其间，有的正探求走向真理的途径。人群中一个突出的人物是贿赂夫人，代表当时社会的腐败。下一个梦境探讨7种罪孽，象征各种恶行的寓言人物一个个栩栩如生。
长诗《农夫皮尔斯》以其宏大的篇幅，广阔的社会背景、强烈的艺术力量和它所体现的民主思想而堪称是欧洲中世纪文学的一部典范。
Poet. Little can be gleaned as to his personal history, and of that little part is contradictory. In a note of the 15th century written on one MS. he is said to have been b. in Oxfordshire, the s. of a freeman named Stacy de Rokayle, while Bale, writing in the 16th century, makes his name Robert (certainly an error), and says he was b. at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. From his great poem, Piers the Plowman, it is to be gathered that he was bred to the Church, and was at one time an inmate of the monastery at Great Malvern. He m., however, and had a dau., which, of course, precluded him from going on to the priesthood. It has further been inferred from his poem that his f., with the help of friends, sent him to school, but that on the death of these friends the process of education came to an end, and he went to London, living in a little house in Cornhill and, as he says, not only in but on London, supporting himself by singing requiems for the dead. "The tools I labour with ... [are] Paternoster, and my primer Placebo, and Dirige, and my Psalter, and my seven Psalms." References to legal terms suggest that he may have copied for lawyers. In later life he appears to have lived in Cornwall with his wife and dau. Poor himself, he was ever a sympathiser with the poor and oppressed. His poem appears to have been the great interest of his life, and almost to the end he was altering and adding to, without, however, improving it. The full title of the poem is The Vision of Piers Plowman. Three distinct versions of it exist, the first c. 1362, the second c. 1377, and the third 1393 or 1398. It has been described as "a vision of Christ seen through the clouds of humanity." It is divided into nine dreams, and is in the unrhymed, alliterative, first English manner. In the allegory appear such personifications as Meed (worldly success), Falsehood, Repentance, Hope, etc. Piers Plowman, first introduced as the type of the poor and simple, becomes gradually transformed into the Christ. Further on appear Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best. In this poem, and its additions, L. was able to express all that he had to say of the abuses of the time, and their remedy. He himself stands out as a sad, earnest, and clear-sighted onlooker in a time of oppression and unrest. It is thought that he may have been the author of a poem, Richard the Redeless: if so he was, at the time of writing, living in Bristol, and making a last remonstrance to the misguided King, news of whose death may have reached him while at the work, as it stops in the middle of a paragraph. He is not much of an artist, being intent rather on delivering his message than that it should be in a perfect dress. Prof. Manley, in the Cambridge History of English Literature, advances the theory that The Vision is not the work of one, but of several writers, W.L. being therefore a dramatic, not a personal name. It is supported on such grounds as differences in metre, diction, sentence structure, and the diversity of view on social and ecclesiastic matters expressed in different parts of the poem.