Cotton Nero A.x, Patience, Cleanness, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet. Trans. Casey Finch. Berkeley: U of Cal. P., 1993. Print.

            [with Middle English Text ed. by Malcolm Andrew, Ronald Waldron, and Clifford Peterson]

·         Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

·         Pearl

·         Patience

·         Cleanness

NB: All images below are from the wonderful scans of The Cotton Nero A.x Project, which is available for free online. I highly suggest everyone check it out: http://gawain.ucalgary.ca/

Patience: 

Patience is a poem about obedience. The narrator opens by explaining that he favors patience when adversity sets in, as this is one of the Beatitudes espoused in Matthew. The narrator then launches into an exempla utilizing Jonah, who generally tries to shirk his proper role as God's prophet. When tasked with preaching to the Ninevites, Jonah fears retribution and flees by boat. After rough seas beset the ship, the passengers realize that someone has angered God and eventually heave Jonah overboard (which I always find hilarious, as the logic of casting Jonah over isn't entirely extensive and mostly boils down to "Hey, let's try throwing that guy over. It could work"). Jonah is swallowed by a whale and, after sulking long enough, beseeches God's aid and resumes his task to preach to the Ninevites. They all convert, God spares them, and Jonah yells at god for making him a liar when he prophesied their destruction. God further punishes Jonah, who eventually catches on.  

Cleanness:

      In Cleanness, the Pearl poet offers three exempla on the matter of cleanness, specifically

      spiritual cleanness. After the introductory section, the first exempla is the parable of the

      Wedding Guest, where the poet emphasizes that, as the wedding guest's clothes are not appropriate for a wedding, so too must one have a clean soul when meeting his maker. The poet then moves to an exempla on Abraham and Lot, emphasizing God's vengeance. The final exempla involves the Nebuchadnezzar conquest of Jerusalem and eventual succession by Belshazzar, but the real focus is on the writing on the temple wall that Daniel has to translate. At this point, the topic seems to shift away from cleanness, despite the narrators conclusion to reiterate its importance. 

Pearl:

      One of the better known works of the, ahem, Pearl poet, Pearl is a dream vision from the perspective of a father mourning his deceased daughter. Once in the dream, this jeweler finds himself in a miraculous land that is across a river from the Kingdom of Heaven. The jeweler is greeted by a wonderful maiden who he discerns is his daughter, the Pearl. Their dialogue revolves around the daughter's new status in heaven as a queen, due to her unblemished nature, and the proper methodology of how the jeweler may "pay" for his own way into this heavenly city. Eventually, the jeweler awakens and vows to follow the Pearl's advice. In this read through, I got much more out of the economic language the Pearl and her father use in their dialogue. This will be of particular interest when considering spiritual economies, related perhaps to the Pearl's now married status to Christ. 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

       Sir Gawain and the Green Knight may be my favorite piece of Middle English literature, or perhaps favorite piece of literature period. I love it so much that I keep trying to come up with ways to include it in my work, which I haven't quite managed yet. To briefly summarize, a strange knight bursts into Arthur's court during a Yule celebration, demanding to play a beheading game. No knights answer so Arthur steps up to the challenge, at which point Gawain steps in and convinces the king to let him play instead. After chopping off the Green Knight's head, Gawain is surprised to see that knight pick up said head and replace it, and then give Gawain a year reprieve till the Green Knight gets his stroke, which will happen at the Green Chapel. Later in the year, in October, Gawain sets off with a shield that has a five pointed star on one side, the Virgin Mary on the other. After much questing in the woods, Gawain finds a castle whose host invites him to stay until Gawain's appointment, as the host, Bert(c)ilak informs the knight that the Green Chapel is close by. Bertilak and Gawain agree to an exchange game, where each shall give to the other what is gained in their respective hunts, Bertilak in the forest and Gawain in the castle. The first day Bertilak hunts a deer and Gawain receives a kiss from Bertilak's wife, who is not so subtly pursuing the knight. The second day sees Bertilak hunting boar and Gawain receiving two kisses, which he again gives to Bertilak. On the third day, Bertilak hunts a fox, and Gawain is effectively outmaneuvered by Lady Bertilak, who gives him three kisses and convinces the knight to take her green girdle as a token, which she says has magical properties that could help Gawain survive his encounter with the knight. Gawain fails to give Bertilak the girdle, breaking his word in the game, and rides out to meet the Green Knight. After nearly striking Gawain twice and finally nicking his neck, the Green Knight reveals that he is Bertilak, his wife has been acting at his behest, and all was arranged by Morgan le Fay. Gawain sulkily returns home, wearing the green belt as a token to remind him of his folly, which Arthur and the other knight's do not seem to entirely grasp the relevance of.

I could go on at length about the critical relevance of this text, which is legion. A lot builds upon how one reads Arthur's court, either as young and foolish or as reasonably fearful of this intruder. Supporters of the former tend to side with a Ricardian composition of this text, suggesting that Arthur, like Richard II, was surrounded by a court that was doing more harm than good to his rule. Much has also been made of the structure of the poem, revolving around the framing and three hunts, but Kathryn Kerby Fulton's recent Opening Middle English Texts has an interesting correction to this. For about a century, this poem has been taught in a five fitt structure, emphasizing a specific construction and pacing of the poem. The single extant manuscript, however, does not break into these fitts or give any indication that it should be. Instead, the poem is broken into nine parts that changes some of the dynamics of how it is read. This is an example of critical intervention, as the scholar that worked on the text in the early 20th century put it into five fitts, and scholars since have gone on assuming that this is simply the way it is supposed to be. 

      Also, due to the scribe's hand it is almost impossible to know if the Green Knight's name is Bertilak or Bercilak, as the c and t forms of this anglicana script are indeterminable. Check the image below and see what I mean.