Full Description
The fourteenth-century Middle English poem Pearl is one of the best dream vision poems ever written, yet its Language (the North-west Midlands dialect of late-medieval England) and literary allusions (to biblical, mythological, and medieval works) make it difficult for modern readers to understand. This new dual-Language of Pearl provides the original Middle English with a facing-page modern English translation. It includes a comprehensive introduction, annotations of key words and ideas, reproduction of the four manuscript Illustrations, a literary sourcebook, and lists of biblical sources, significant liturgical dates, and the concatenation words. Literary and biblical sources for the poem are provided as appendices.
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
A Note on the Text Pearl
Appendix A: Literary Sourcebook - Key Passages
Parable
Parable of the Pearl of Great Price
Parable of the Treasure in the Field
Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
Descriptions of Pearls
From Pliny, Natural History
From Albert the Great, De animalibus
From Marbod of Rennes, De lapidibus
From Bartholomæus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum
From The Peterborough Lapidary
From Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries
Life of Saint Margaret of Antioch (from the Legenda Aurea)
The Spring of Narcissus (from The Romance of the Rose)
The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice (from King Alfred's Version of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, trans. Walter John Sedgefield)
Dante Meets Matilda and Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise (from Dante's Purgatorio XXIX-XXXIII, trans. A. S. Kline)
Pygmalion and Galatea (from Ovid's Metamorphoses)
The Phoenix of Arabia (from Ovid's Metamorphoses)
Origen on the Song of Songs
The New Jerusalem (Revelation 21)
Appendix B: List of Biblical Source Passages
Appendix C: List of Significant Liturgical Dates
Appendix D: Chart of Concatenation Words
Select Bibliography
