Pearl (poem)

Pearl (Perle) is a late 14th-century Middle English poem that is considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works. With elements of medieval allegory and dream vision genre, the poem is written in a North-West Midlands variety of Middle English and highly—though not consistently—alliterative; there is a complex system of stanza linking and other stylistic features. A father, mourning the loss of his perle (pearl), falls asleep in a garden; in his dream, he encounters the 'Pearl-maiden'—a beautiful and heavenly woman—standing across a stream in a strange landscape. In response to his questioning and attempts to obtain her, she answers with Christian doctrine. Eventually she shows him an image of the Heavenly City, and herself as part of the retinue of Christ the Lamb. However, when the Dreamer attempts to cross the stream, he awakens suddenly from his dream and reflects on its significance. The poem survives in a single manuscript, London, British Library MS Cotton MS Nero A X, which includes two other religious narrative poems: Patience, and Cleanness, and the romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. All are thought to be by the same author, dubbed the "Pearl poet" or "Gawain poet", on the evidence of stylistic and thematic similarities. The first complete publication of Pearl, Patience and Cleanness was in Early English Alliterative Poems in the West Midland Dialect of the fourteenth century, printed by the Early English Text Society in 1864. Pearl Poet Though the real name of "The Pearl Poet" (or poets) is unknown, some inferences about them can be drawn from an informed reading of their works. The original manuscript is known in academic circles as Cotton Nero A.x, following a naming system used by one of its owners, Robert Cotton, a collector of Medieval English texts. Before the manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile of Bank in Yorkshire. Little is known about its previous ownership, and until 1824, when the manuscript was introduced to the academic community in a second edition of Thomas Warton's History edited by Richard Price, it was almost entirely unknown.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (6)

Cleanness

Cleanness (Middle English: Clannesse) is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the Pearl poet or Gawain poet, also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Patience, and may have also composed St. Erkenwald. The poem is found solely in the Pearl manuscript, Cotton Nero A x. That manuscript also contains Pearl, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Patience (poem)

Patience (Middle English: Pacience) is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain-Poet", also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Cleanness (all ca. 1360–1395) and may have composed St. Erkenwald. This is thought to be true because the techniques and vocabulary of regional dialect of the unknown author is that of Northwest Midlands, located between Shropshire and Lancashire.

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien ('ruːl_ˈtɒlkiːn, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959.