Middle English Pearl

When the Dreamer asks the Pearl-Maiden, “What kind of thing may be that Lamb / that he would wed you as his wife?” (ll. 771-72), she answers by describing the communal inclusivity of her spiritual marriage to Christ, John’s spiritual vision of the New Jerusalem, and the crucifixion itself. She emphasizes the symbolic representation of Christ as Lamb and the theme of redemption made possible through Christ’s death. Although the Dreamer’s question appears to be motivated by an earthly jealousy, the Pearl-Maiden attempts to lift his understanding into a heavenly realm. Her words specifically foreshadow the vision the Dreamer will experience of the New Jerusalem and the bleeding Lamb later in the poem. Her explanation acts as both invitation and preparation, not only for the dreamer, but also for the reader.

This essay considers the concept of spiritual marriage, as developed in the Bible and later Christian commentary tradition, and the poet’s exegetical glossing, through the Pearl-Maiden’s speech, of biblical texts like Isaiah, Revelation, and the Gospels, which aims to foreground the theological importance and intimacy of the crucifixion in the context of late medieval affective piety.

Ultimately, the Pearl-Maiden’s dazzling answer to the Dreamer’s question is all about how death, though it temporarily deprives the lover of the beloved, has been conquered through the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. While the Dreamer is not yet ready to accept this, the Pearl-Maiden’s answer constitutes an important step on his journey toward consolation. The manner in which the Pearl-Maiden describes the crucifixion catches the reader in a spiritual vision with implications for the reader’s own spiritual formation and pilgrimage through the sorrows of life toward surrender to God in the light of heaven.

This article addresses some of the recent debates and current approaches to the poems ascribed to the so-called Gawain poet. It conceives of the author as an elusive voice made material in a single fourteenth-century manuscript. The article contends with the theorizing of perception, visualization, and the senses in Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness and asks how these are related to illusions of permanence and the interactions between materiality and the immaterial in the poems. The formation of subjectivity, self, and identity—and the subject’s self-conscious and affective performance—is explored in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, querying some of the intrinsic thematic concerns that interlink the Cotton Nero poems and Saint Erkenwald. Ultimately the article contends with the artificial and fictive past as construed by the poems and by the modern reader.

In this pedagogical essay, published in _The Once and Future Classroom_, I discuss teaching the Middle English "Pearl" in a general education course, primarily for freshmen and sophomores, with a focus on its relationship to parables, fables, and fairy-tales; in an introductory survey course, primarily for English majors, with a focus on its relationship to medieval sacred and secular love lyrics; and in an author course, primarily for junior and senior English majors, with a focus its influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's poetry ("Princess Mee") and mythology (the legend of Beren and Lúthien in _The Silmarillion_).

To read this essay online, see: https://once-and-future-classroom.org/6-three-approaches-to-teaching-pearl-introduction-to-literature-british-literature-i-and-the-mythology-of-j-r-r-tolkien/

Using comparative literary analysis, this essay examines three case studies from J.R.R. Tolkien’s oeuvre, in which Tolkien practiced eucatastrophic rewriting: his folk-tale, “Sellic Spell,” in which he re-creates the Old English poem Beowulf; his poem, “Princess Mee,” in which he re-envisions aspects of the myth of Narcissus and the Middle English dream vision poem, Pearl; and the character of Éowyn from The Lord of the Rings, in which he re-imagines the fate of Brynhild, a shield-maiden and valkyrie from Norse legend. In each case, Tolkien rewrites the original so that sorrow is transformed into happiness in Tolkien’s new versions. As part of the analysis of these transformations, this essay also considers a possible personal motivation as well as a larger purpose behind Tolkien’s artistic choices: his relationship to his beloved wife, Edith, and a desire to convey to others the hope he found in his own Christian faith.

In “Orphic Powers in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legend of Beren and Lúthien,” I consider three interrelated strands that influenced the development of Tolkien’s most precious story: Tolkien’s own life experience, sources from classical mythology and medieval literature, and the hope inherent to the Christian faith, especially for resurrection and eternal life, as symbolized in the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price. This study suggests that Tolkien’s relationship to his wife, Edith, inspires the legend and renders it a psychological allegory. Three Ovidian tales from classical mythology that were later re-told in medieval literature also influence it: the rape of Philomela, the self-sacrifice of Alcestis, and the love-story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Finally, Tolkien interweaves symbolism from the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, especially as it was developed in the fourteenth-century dream vision, Pearl, and transforms it in his Silmarils. The Silmaril that Beren prised from the iron crown of Morgoth will eventually find its place in the heavens above Middle-earth, where it is called the Morning Star, a clear allusion to Christ, who is the apotheosis of Tolkien’s Christian faith.

The function of images in the major illustrated English poetic works from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early fifteenth century is the primary concern of this book. Hilmo argues that the illustrations have not been sufficiently understood because modern judgments about their artistic merit and fidelity to the literary texts have got in the way of a historical understanding of their function. The author here proves that artists took their work seriously because images represented an invisible order of reality, that they were familiar with the vernacular poems, and that they were innovative in adapting existing iconographies to guide the ethical reading process of their audience. To provide a theoretical basis for the understanding of early monuments, artefacts, and texts, she examines patristic opinions on imagemaking, supported by the most authoritative modern sources. Fresh emphasis is given to the iconic nature of medieval images from the time of the iconoclastic debates of the 8th and 9th centuries to the renewed anxiety of image-making at the time of the Lollard attacks on images. She offers an important revision of the reading of the Ruthwell Cross, which changes radically the interpretation of the Cross as a whole. Among the manuscripts examined here are the Caedmon, Auchinleck, Vernon, and Pearl manuscripts. Hilmo's thesis is not confined to overtly religious texts and images, but deals also with historical writing, such as Layamon's Brut, and with poetry designed ostensibly for entertainment, such as the Canterbury Tales. This study convincingly demonstrates how the visual and the verbal interactively manifest the real "text" of each illustrated literary work. The artistic elements place vernacular works within a larger iconographic framework in which human composition is seen to relate to the activities of the divine Author and Artificer.Whether iconic or anti-iconic in stance, images, by their nature, were a potent means of influencing the way an English author's words, accessible in the vernacular, were thought about and understood within the context of the theology of the Incarnation that informed them and governed their aesthetic of spiritual function. This is the first study to cover the range of illustrated English poems from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early 15th century.

This book enhances our understanding of the exquisitely beautiful, fourteenth-century, Middle English dream vision poem "Pearl." Situating the study in the contexts of medieval literary criticism and contemporary genre theory, Beal argues that the poet intended "Pearl" to be read at four levels of meaning and in four corresponding genres: literally, an elegy; spiritually, an allegory; morally, a consolation; and anagogically, a revelation. The book addresses cruxes and scholarly debates about the poem’s genre and meaning, including key questions that have been unresolved in "Pearl" studies for over a century:

* What is the nature of the relationship between the Dreamer and the Maiden?
* What is the significance of allusions to Ovidian love stories and the use of liturgical time in the poem?
* How does avian symbolism, like that of the central symbol of the pearl, develop, transform, and add meaning throughout the dream vision?
* What is the nature of God portrayed in the poem, and how does the portrayal of the Maiden’s intimate relationship to God, her spiritual marriage to the Lamb, connect to the poet’s purpose in writing?

Noting that the poem is open to many interpretations, Beal also considers folktale genre patterns in "Pearl," including those drawn from parable, fable, and fairy-tale. The conclusion considers "Pearl" in the light of modern psychological theories of grieving and trauma. This book makes a compelling case for re-reading "Pearl" and recognizing the poem’s signifying power. Given the ongoing possibility of new interpretations, it will appeal to those who specialize in "Pearl" as well as scholars of Middle English, Medieval Literature, Genre Theory, and Literature and Religion.