I notice that Michael has awarded this thread to Chris Childers. It's tempting to sit around while someone else clears up my mess, but I suppose that would be rather naughty.
I've been geeky about the Pearl since I first read it. I had the good fortune to originally meet all four of the Cotton Nero A.x poems under the wing of A C Spearing - still my favourite critic on the works. Recently the internet and MP3 players have re-introduced me to the pleasures of listening to classic poetry (as opposed to reading it), and I find Pearl comes up as fresh as ever.
Thanks to all who responded, but especially to Maryann and Andrew - who I think took me even deeper into the poem. So I shall answer your points first.
Andrew : I think your parallel between reading deep allegory (allegory where the narrative is not simply a signpost to the hidden homily) and dream interpretation has helped me formulate a strategy for approaching the Pearl (and a few other late medieval pieces) that I have been groping towards for several years, but without discovering the focus you offer. The multiple puns or enriched meanings that certain words get in the poem ('clan' / 'clanly' / 'clannesse' also seem a nexus of meaning in these poems) is part of the strategy of connotation in these poems; but in Pearl in particular I am also intrigued by how often the poem switches between daylight and nightime scenes. Light is foregrounded in this poem, the way it is in the Divine Comedy. I think your suggestion that one can look hard at the purely pictorial elements in the Pearl will keep me going back to the verses for some years yet.
Maryann : I love the E V Gordon edition, and if I were studying the poem I would probably use that. But for reading the poem I usually pick up the Andrew / Waldron 'Poems of the Pearl Manuscript' - simply because it gives me all four poems together, and I think they throw crosslights on each other. Gordon parses 'gresse' simply as 'grass'; so does Andrew / Waldron. But Andrew / Waldron also has a cf. to 'grece' at Gawain 2315.
2315 is a big line in Gawain: it is where Gawain gets his scar:
the scharpe shrancke to the flesche thurgh the schyre grece
I would guess that early hearers of the Pearl would also probably have heard Gawain, and might remember this vivid image as clearly as I do. If we suppose that all the poems of Cotton Nero A.x originally came from the same smallish household somewhere in the English northwest, it would be only natural that certain key symbols and ideas would cross-contaminate from one poem to the other.
'grece' and 'gresse' would sound the same (I think) and that might be enough to associate them in the hearers' minds.
It also interests me that 'gresse' comes round again in line 31 of the Pearl:
for uch gresse mot grow of greynez dede
that line is so close to the 'all flesh is grass' idea that I am nearly sure the Pearl poet wants us to think outside the lawn on this occasion.
Moving from 'gresse' to 'grace' (with a true vowel shift) is much more speculative; but this is something that I do when I listen to semi-familiar poems, so I am guessing that medieval hearers might be the same.
......
Incidentally, and in passing: yes I've read Parzival. Schianatulander is one of those once-read-never-forgotten guys. But even so, my money is on Aucussin et Nicolette for the really weird stuff.
......
Brian: It's a dense poem, and I think to say anything clearly about it, one has to speak in short sentences. I loved it in my late teens, but I understand it much better since I have daughters. I think the way the poem shifts between the hard jewel imagery and the squidgy daughter imagery is among its many delights.
......
Tim: I am certain that 'gresse' means 'grass' first. I just think that this is a poem where words don't stop at the one meaning.
One use of strictform is to make the reader go slow and savour each word. In some respects the Pearl is the strictest form in English (for a longer poem), it is certainly one of the slowest-moving.
......
Lance: I love Chaucer because he is so swift, the Pearl poet because he dawdles so. (I think even Gawain dawdles, compared to - say - Troylus and criseyde). I wouldn't be without either of them (but I think perhaps I am missing something with Langland).
......
Michael: simply introducing you to one of my favourite poems (in any language) amply repays any effort I spent on this thread. I like the Jewett translation partly because it isn't all that good. It's modern English - so I can put it on my MP3 player; but it's sufficiently creaky that I know it will keep sending me back to the real words. Sometimes you need a translation, sometimes you just want a crib. The Jewett is a crib, which for this poem is all I need.
......
Gail : I can certainly understand why a teacher might prefer to base a course around Gawain. Gawain is less strange, the language is significantly more accessible, there is no Thomas Aquinas, and it is even slightly the better poem. I've never taught the Pearl through, though I've stepped people through the first few passus. I don't think I would dare tackle XV - which I don't understand. (I sort of get what is being said, but I can't work out what that section is doing in the poem).
Thanks for referencing the parallels between the Pearl and Piccarda Donati in the Paradiso. I think the Pearl is more garrulous though, almost rowdy. The Pearl would be more fun at a party, I think.
......
David: yes, you have to hear it. It doesn't deliver the full deal if it stays on the page. Reading it aloud is good; listening to someone else read it aloud is also good. I can read the Middle English aloud to myself OK, but if I want to focus on listening, I need a crib.
......
Janice: thank you so much. I brought you a new poet. You sent me back to one I have a regrettable habit of forgetting. That is what is so magical about this forum.
......
Thanks all. This is very nearly as much fun as it is possible to have doing something which is good for me.
Last edited by Christopher ONeill; 10-27-2012 at 05:17 PM.
Reason: format repairs
|
Linear Mode
