Pearl Poet

The Pearl or Gawain Poet (fl. c.1375–1400), manuscript painting (as the father in Pearl)

The "Pearl Poet", or the "Gawain Poet", is the name given to the author of Pearl, an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English.

Life

The Pearl Poet appears also to have written the poems Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness; some scholars suggest the author may also have composed Saint Erkenwald. Save for the latter (found in BL-MS Harley 2250), all these works are known from a single surviving manuscript, the British Library holding Cotton Nero A.x. This body of work includes some of the greatest poetry written in Middle English.

Conjectured biography

The language of the poems shows that the poet was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and William Langland, who are sometimes (following the suggestion of academic John Burrow) collectively called the 'Ricardian Poets' in reference to the reign of Richard II of England. All four poems of the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript are in the same Middle English dialect, localised to the area of north-western Staffordshire and south-eastern Cheshire, in the English midlands. This may merely indicate the dialect of the scribe responsible for copying the poems, but there is good evidence that the dialect of poet and scribe were very similar. It is, therefore, thought most likely that the poet was a native of east Cheshire or west Staffordshire and was writing in the latter part of the 14th century, and internal evidence indicates that all four works were probably written by the same author.

File:Wettonmill.jpg

The caves at Wetton Mill, near Leek, Staffordshire, have been identified as a likely inspiration for the "Green Chapel" in Gawain and the Green Knight, given the author's dialect and the geography indicated in the poem.

Any other information must be deduced from the poems' themes, as there is neither a definite authorial attribution within them nor any 'tradition' as to the author's identitity (as with Langland and Piers Plowman). The poet would seem to be exceptionally conversant with learning, shows a deep knowledge of technical vocabulary about hunting and the court, vividly describes the landscape of the region, and has an interest in poverty as a Christian virtue. However, the writer of the Cotton Nero A.x poems never refers to contemporary scholarship as Chaucer, for example, does; the poems show much more of a tendency to refer to materials from the past (the Arthurian legends, stories from the Bible) than any new learning, so it is perhaps less possible to associate him or her with the universities, monasteries, or the court in London. Despite this, the Pearl Poet must have been educated and probably of a certain social standing, perhaps a member of a family of landed gentry. J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, after reviewing the allusions, style, and themes of Gawain and the Green Knight, concluded in 1925:

He was a man of serious and devout mind, though not without humour; he had an interest in theology, and some knowledge of it, though an amateur knowledge perhaps, rather than a professional; he had Latin and French and was well enough read in French books, both romantic and instructive; but his home was in the West Midlands of England; so much his language shows, and his metre, and his scenery.

Theories as to possible identity

John Prat, John Donne

A number of scholars have proposed that Pearl was written to commemorate the daughter of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, and two clerks from Pembroke, John Prat and John Donne, have been advanced as possible candidates for authorship.

"Huchoun"

Main article: Huchoun

A theory current in the early part of the 20th century held that a man called Huchoun ("little Hugh") may have authored the poems, having been credited with several works, including at least one known to be in the alliterative form, in the Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun. As Cotton Nero A.x contains the words "Hugo de" added in a later hand, its contents were identified with some of the works mentioned by Wyntoun.

This argument, made in greatest detail by a Scottish antiquarian, George Neilson (who claimed that Hugh was a Scottish knight, Hugh of Eglington) is nowadays disregarded, mainly because the poems attributed to Hugh seem to have been composed in widely varying dialects.

John (or Hugh) Massey

The surname of Massey, that of a prominent Cheshire family, is associated with St Erkenwald, a poem occasionally claimed to be another of the Pearl poet's works; the names of Thomas Massey and Elizabeth Booth (a member of the Booth family of Dunham Massey) are written in St Erkenwald's manuscript.

In 1956 Ormerod Greenwood, working on a translation of Gawain, made the suggestion that the author of Pearl and Gawain was one of the Masseys of Sale. He suggested Hugh Massey, based on a number of puns he found incorporated in Pearl (in addition to the "Hugo de" inscription in Cotton Nero A.x) Given the obvious link through the name "Hugh", Hugh Massey has been conflated with Huchoun by some academics.

A later suggestion is John Massey of Cotton (a village mentioned in Gawain); this was first put forward by Nolan and Farley-Hills in 1971. John Massey's authorship is further supported, according to Nolan, by one of Thomas Hoccleve's poems, in which the Hoccleve mentions "my maister Massy", indicating him to be a fearsome critic of poetic metre. The attribution to John Massey is not, however, widely supported by modern critics of the poem.

Publications

Manuscript facsimiles

• The Cotton Nero A.x Project (hosted by the University of Calgary). Web.
• The Pearl Manuscript, with transcription and translation by Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron (The Folio Society, 2016). Print.

Middle-English editions

• Anderson, J.J. & A. C. Cawley, eds. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. Rev. ed. London: Everyman, 1996.
• Andrew, Malcolm, & Ronald Waldron, eds. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 5th ed. Exeter, England: U of Exeter P, 2007.
• Chase, Stanley P., ed. “The Pearl”: The Text of the Fourteenth Century English Poem. Bowdoin ed. Ed. Members of the Chaucer Course in Bowdoin College. Boston: Humphries, 1932.
• Gordon, E.V. & J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Pearl. New York: Oxford UP, 1953.
• Moorman, Charles, ed., ed. The Works of the Gawain-Poet. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1977. Print. AMZ (Preview in Google Books)
• Morris, Richard, ed. Early English Alliterative Poems in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century. EETS, OS 1. 1864. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1869. Print. IA
• Osgood, Charles G., Jr., ed. “The Pearl”: A Middle English Poem. Boston: Heath, 1906. Print. IA
• Putter, Ad and Myra Stokes, eds., The Works of the Gawain-Poet (Penguin Classics, 2014). AMZ
• Stanbury, Sarah, ed. Pearl. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2001. Print.
• —, ed. “Introduction.” Pearl. TEAMS: Middle English Text Series. Web. TEAMS

Dual-language editions

• Armitage, Simon. Pearl: A New Verse Translation. New York and London: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016. Print / ebook. AMZ.
• Beal, Jane, ed. and trans. Pearl: A Middle English Edition and Modern English Translation. Peterborough: Broadview, forthcoming. Print.
• Crawford, John and Andrew Hoyem, ed. and trans. “The Pearl.” San Francisco: Grabhorn-Hoyem, 1967. Print.
• de Ford, Sara, ed. and trans. Anonymous: “The Pearl”. Crofts Classics. New York: AHM, 1967. Print. AMZ
• Finch, Casey, ed. Complete Works of the Pearl Poet. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. Print. AMZ
• Gollancz, Israel, ed. and trans. “Pearl”: An English Poem of the Fourteenth Century with a Modern Rendering. 1891. Rev. ed. London: Privately Pr., 1897. Print. IA
  • —, ed. and trans. “Pearl”: An English Poem of the XIVth Century; with a Modern Rendering, Together with Boccaccio’s Olympia. London: Chatto and Windos, 1921. Print. IA
• Gould, David, trans. Pearl of Great Price: A Literary Translation of the Middle English Pearl. Lanham, MD: UP of America, 2012. Print. AMZ
• Hillmann, Mary Vincent, ed. and trans. “The Pearl”: Mediaeval Text with a Literal Translation and Interpretation. 1961. Rev. ed. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 1967. Print. See also Hillmann’s Pearl. AMZ
• Stanton, Bill, trans. This Being a Translation of in Verse of the Middle English Poem Pearl by an Unknown Poet. York, UK: U of York, 1995. Print.
  • —. This Being a Translation of in Verse of the Middle English Poem Pearl by an Unknown Poet. W.G. Stanton, 1995. Web.
• Vantuono, William, trans. Pearl: An Edition with Verse Translation. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 1995. Print. See also Vantuono’s Omnibus Edition. AMZ
• Watts, Victor, trans. Pearl. Ed. David Fuller and Corinne Saunders. London: Enitharmon, 2005. Print. AMZ

English translations

• Borroff, Marie, trans. The Gawain Poet: Complete Works; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Cleanness, Pearl, Saint Erkenwald. New York: Norton, 2011. Print. AMZ
  • —, trans. “Pearl”: A New Verse Translation. New York: Norton, 1977. Print.
  • —, trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Pearl: Verse Translations. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.
• Chase, Stanley P., trans. “The Pearl”: The Fourteenth Century English Poem Rendered in Modern Verse. New York: Oxford UP, 1932. Print.
• Coulton, George Gordon, trans. “Pearl”: A Fourteenth-Century Poem. London: David Nutt, 1906. Print. IA
• Draycott, Jane, trans. Pearl. Manchester, GBR: Carcanet, 2011. Print. AMZ See Draycott excerpt.
• Gardner, John, trans. The Complete Works of the Gawain-Poet: In a Modern English Version with a Critical Introduction. 1965. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1975. Print. AMZ
• Jewett, Sophie, trans. “The Pearl”: A Modern Version in the Metre of the Original. New York: Crowell, 1908. Print. IA
• Kirtlan, Ernest J. B., trans. “Pearl”: A Poem of Consolation; Rendered into Modern English Verse. London: Kelly, 1918. Print.
• Mead, Marian, trans. “The Pearl”: An English Vision-Poem of the Fourteenth Century Done into Modern Verse. Portland, ME: Mosher, 1908. Print. AMZ
• Mitchell, S. Weir, Pearl: Rendered into Modern English Verse (Portland, ME: Thomas Bird Mosher, 1908). Print. HathiTrust
• Osgood, Charles G., Jr., trans. “The Pearl”: An Anonymous English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, Rendered in Prose. Princeton: Privately printed, 1907. Print.
• Stone, Brian, trans. Medieval English Verse. New York: Penguin, 1964. Print. AMZ
• Tolkien, J.R.R., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. Boston: Houghton, 1975. Print. AMZ
• Watson, Giles, trans. Pearl. Lulu Press, 2014. Print.
• Weston, Jessie L., trans. Romance, Vision and Satire: English Alliterative Poems of the Fourteenth Century. New York: Houghton, 1912. Print. IA
• Williams, Margaret, trans. The Pearl-Poet: His Complete Works. 1967. New York: Vintage, 1970. Print. AMZ

Editions or translations in anthologies

• Conlee, John, ed., “Pearl,” Middle English Debate Poetry: A Critical Anthology. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State UP, 1991. Print. AMZ
• Dunn, Charles W. and Edward T. Byrnes, eds., “Pearl,” Middle English Literature. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College, 1973. Print. AMZ (Preview in Google Books, click on p. 339)
• Garbáty, Thomas J., ed., “Pearl,” Medieval English Literature. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1984. Print. AMZ
• Haskell, Ann Sullivan, ed., “Pearl,” A Middle English Anthology. 1969. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1985. Print. (Preview in Google Books, click on p. 278)
• Mossé, Fernand and James A. Walker, eds. “Description of the New Jerusalem from Pearl.” Handbook of Middle English. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins UP, 1952, 1968, 1991, 2000, 2008. Print. AMZ
• Kenneth Sisam and J.R.R. Tolkien, eds., “Lines 361-612 from Pearl,” A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary (1921-22, rpt. 2005). See Tolkien’s Vocabulary. IA
• Stone, Brian, trans. Medieval English Verse. New York: Penguin, 1964. Print. (Modern English only). AMZ
• Williams, David, ed. and trans. “Pearl,” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period, 3rd. edition, BABL Online only (2015), 1-37. BABL Online

Pearl by Simon Armitage

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Medieval Pearl..

See also

• Middle English poets
• List of British poets

References

• Bowers, John M. An Introduction to the Gawain Poet. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8130-4015-8

External links

Poems

• The text of Pearl

Books

• Pearl Poet at Amazon.com

About

• Gawain Poet at Oxford Bibliographies
• Pearl Poet at Medieval Pearl
• The Gawain Poet: A research guide at Duquesne University
• Michael Twomey. "Travels with Sir Gawain". http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/twomey/travels/sggk_frameset.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-23. 
• Scholarly Introduction to Pearl, Sarah Stanbury

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