Looking for Piers Ploughman advice

For some reason I can't get it out of my head that I should read Piers Ploughman. (I had really wanted to at one time, long ago, and I'm not sure why I never did, except that I was intimidated by the idea.) I don't read works of that sort these days, but my inner daemon is telling me I ought to read this one some time in the near future.

I think my current quasi-obsessive thoughts about Piers Ploughman date back to my reading a review of an interesting-looking book attempting to revise the canon such that Langland would take Chaucer's place as the father of English literature--or something like that, only more intelligent. The book (which I haven't read) discusses the class context, as well as the active campaign that apparently was launched at one point (early on) to give Chaucer a position of prominence and downgrade Langland's importance (again with political implications).

Anyway, what's the best version, and what editions are recommended?

Or maybe I should just read the Wikipedia article.

props because an impulse to read piers ploughman is truly one of the weirdest impulses i've heard about recently

Haha. The fact that I haven't dropped the idea after a couple years of being haunted by it makes me think there is some reason to follow through.

Sounds scary though:

There are 50-56 surviving manuscripts, some of which are fragmentary. None of the texts are known to be in the author's own hand, and none of them derive directly from any of the others.

but of course I don't plan on becoming a scholar.

i've only read whatever excerpts they had in the norton anthology tbh (or maybe they had the whole thing and we just read excerpts); the allegory is so heavy-handed you read it and you're just like "yup"

though thinking about my british literature courses makes me want to break out the faerie queen.

Faerie Queen seems even more formidable, to me, but I've never read it (or read much in it--though I suppose I must have read some of it at some point).

Yes, this is a genuinely unusual impulse. Weird. Sick even. But I sympathise - I find PP plenty opaque & tedious but keep coming back to it (in bits & pieces, haven't read the whole thing since I was an undergrad, when I felt like it was the great challenge - like if I could get my head round this there was nothing unmanageable in Canonical Eng Lit).

You want to read it in the original, right? It is difficult - like much harder than Chaucer on a surface level - but the language & metre is really enjoyable, v tough-flexible, once you're plugged in; I feel like I'd just be reading some quite boring allegories about theology & ecclesiastical politics if I went for a translation.

I think maybe AVC Schmidt's Everyman edition of the b-text might be most useful. iirc it's got marginal glosses and plenty of notes. Plus Schmidt's given his life to PP so knows his stuff. You shouldn't have trouble finding it cheap (students can't wait to get rid of this f'ker).

The canonical thing is fascinating too - one of the things that draws me back is the sense of a road English didn't take, a dialect & metre that didn't win.

I'd say Faerie Queen is far easier on a surface level (ie it's in English) but more brain-melting once you're in.

Thanks. Yes, I was planning to try to deal with it in the original language, with maybe some modernization of the spelling (although I guess that should be the least of my worries). I have to admit I've only ever glanced at it.