Of þat pryuy perle wythouten spot.

My brain is a bit tired to be reading this in a technical vein, so consider this an introductory post and set the tone as you like with your own post. I tend towards an informal style.

I’m interested in the poem as a dream-vision, as a medieval projection of the ideal Christian womanhood and as a portrayal of the process of grieving. I’m also in love with the way the poem sounds when read aloud; the metrical complexity on top of the repetition, emotion and familiar tropes are very whole, very rounded. (Like a pearl. Hmm.) There’s that sense of expectation and return, and steady rhythm, that contributes to the idea of the perfect pearl.

I know I’m muddling about witlessly in the shallows , but where to start?

There are 5 stanzas in the first section. Each stanza ends with a phrase concerning the ‘perle wythouten spot’, the first two describing it as ‘pryuy’ and the last three as ‘precios’. In the MED, we’re probably dealing with the 2nd definition of ‘pryuy’, beginning with ‘Private, personal, one's own; individual, special, peculiar’ but not excluding the 3rd; ‘Unseen, invisible, imperceptible; inner, internal; of a wound; so deep that the bottom is not visible’. A fitting word used of grief, no? ‘Precios’ is used in the same sense in which we use it today, bar a tad more religious significance.

This first section is what Tolkien called a ‘self-contained allegory’ (Tolkien 11), noting in his prickly way of talking about allegory that though the round and glistening pearl may be a symbol of a young girl-child, it does not necessarily mean that the symbolism is carried through to the entire narrative which then becomes a coherent allegory. Tolkien’s comment is aimed at W. H. Schofield (Tolkien 10), who in 1904 apparently proposed the poem to be neither elegiac nor autobiographical but purely allegorical--a lament over the purity of maidenhood (Or some such whatsit; I couldn’t find the article despite my threats and bribes. Bibliographical info below, in case my birthday comes early.).

Anyway, in all his crankiness, people agreed more with Tolkien’s crowd than Schofield; the MLN folks were a bit sceptical, too (Northup 21). I can’t really see the point of trying to make Pearl more complex than it is--there’s something appealing about the complexity and the sincerity that brings to mind Christopher Ryan’s comment on Dante (don’t know where it is, now), that it is where we find reason and love working in harmony, sharpening one another, that we also find the highest sense of morality.

This statement, of course, implies a Christian worldview and one that, in a fit of oh-so-unscholarly subjectivity, finds this particular poem quite appealing. It's entirely true; I approve very readily of the poems in this manuscript. I hope this doesn't create too much of an obstacle to a critical look at the poem. Hmm.