Pearl

Introduction:

Pearl is a dream vision that is the first of four poems in the Pearl Manuscript. The other poems include the homiletics Cleanness and Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The manuscript was written in the late fourteenth century,and  first prepared for print by Richard Morris in 1864. (Only Sir Gawain had been printed earlier.)

Pearl is only somewhat different from Cleanness and Patience, and of course Sir Gawain is different from all three. This poem is stanzaic, with each stanza having twelve lines with four stresses each, and rhyming ababababbcbc. It's pretty intricate. The stanzas are in groups of five, thus making each group 60 lines long. The last lines of one group are refrained in the first line of the following stanza, a technique known as concatenatio (Andrew, 34). So think of the structure as a sort of chain, both beginning and ending in the garden. Similarly, there is the Terrestrial Paradise, and then the vision of New Jerusalem at the two poles of the poem. The debate is sandwiched in the middle, and has its own logic of doubt and explanation, parable, and application. Because of the stanzaic regularity, this is a poem that rewards numerological study.

Breakdown of Sections:

Introduction
I. The mourning of the loss of the pearl - setting - connection with scent, Christ, and nature


Dream-Vision - Description of Dream-Garden
II. adubbemente = adornment - description of the dream-setting, complete with the waters of life, though unidentified as of yet.
III. Sees the river, tries to cross it to get to the other side. The crossing, however, is difficult. At the end, he sees a fair maiden resembling the pearl in description.
IV.Further description of the maiden and her adornment, the narrator's reluctance to approach - the supposition "Ho watz me nerre (th)en aunte or nece" implying she is the narrator's daughter or mother or sister.


Debate Part I - Clarification
V. The narrator asks whether she is who he lost, and she reproaches him for thinking the jewel lost when it is set in better surroundings. He is also reprimanded for wanting to cross the water, which he mayn't do.
VI. sorquydry(g)e = pride - She reproaches him for not believing the commandment of God and trusting only to his eyes. He doesn't understand why he must lose the pearl in this lifetime, now that he's found her. She upholds love of God.
VII. He asks forgiveness, and then she accepts it. She demonstrates her marriage to the Lord.
VIII. fonge = find, perceive, notice - He expresses surprise - isn't Mary the queen of heaven? Yes, she replies, but all are king and queen there, though she rules over even them.



Debate Part 2 - The Parable of the Vine
IX. Queen, he asks, but you've never done anything! She gives the parable of the vine, which is incomplete yet, but implies that keeping oneself busy in service is what matters, and he is quick to have more work.
X. She finishes the parable by demonstrating how those who worked were all paid equally, no matter hwen they came. She was late, as a child, but she came. He disagrees, assuming that serving longer implies salvation instead.






Debate Part 3 - Elevation
XI. She sets up the story of the fall of man, and then the salvation through the grace of God.
XII. God will save the rightwise and the harmless men. Followed by a description of the rightwise, and then a story about Jesus allowing the children to come to him despite his disciples.
XIII. She describes herself as coming forth as a child, and being given her might and beauty in mystical marriage. The narrator is still incredulous that she would have attained the top spot.
XIV. Maskelles = spotless, flawless. She claims she never did say she was the top queen, and cites the 140,000 (so it says in Apocalypse) other brides, before going into a description of Jerusalem and Christ's sacrifice, evoking also the spiritual city where the Pearl now resides.
XV. vus ~ eche. She works her way to answering his objection fully, again citing Revelations. It ends with a placated speaker beginning to state another question

Dream Vision - New Jerusalem
XVI. WHere does she live? Jerusalem, she replies, though there are two of them, the city of God and the city of peae, a distinction that must have confused the narrator. He asks to go there, but she says God would not permit him...except she gets the permission.
XVII. He sees the city, in a passage that repeatedly harps on the authority of the "apostel John." He especially sees the twelve gems used in its construction, its cubic shape, its size (12 furlonge space), and so on.
XVIII. More details - 12 gates, and so on. More details, more shock and awe.
XIX. The speaker sees the inhabitants, all glorious as described. They celebrate the Lord coming among them as the Lamb, the angels serving as heralds. The speaker sees the little queen and has "luf-longyng in gret delyt," language that echoes te spiritual tradition of longing for Christ and salvation.

Return to Earthly Garden
XX. Impetuously the speaker tries to leap the river, but fails and wakes up. Humbled by his lack of restraint, he resolves to live well and serve him as his pearls do.

 Questions 

Repetition of purpose - what does it mean? (185, 267, 508, etc.)

There are many other studies that could be done with particular words. More generally, what I wonder is how this fits in with other dream visions, and with similar genres. For example, a related genre to which this might be relevant is the lapidary, a description book of the powers of various gems. There nearly is a magic overtone to the pearl, and this is exacerbated when the city is described being decorated in twelve jewels, which are subsequently listed (group XVII).

Also the repetition of twelve is intentionally reduplicated in the form. But there are possible flaws. One group has six stanzas, XV. There are other points that one could pick on.