{"title":"Pearl and the Fairies of Romance: Hermeneutics and Intertextuality in a Fourteenth-Century Religious Dream Vision","authors":"Stephen De Hailes","doi":"10.1353/sip.2024.a934226","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article focuses on the parallels that can be drawn between the characters and landscapes of the fourteenth-century <i>Pearl</i> poem and the fairy characters and otherworlds that frequently appear in works of medieval romance. It argues that the <i>Pearl</i>-poet is consciously engaging with readily identifiable fairy themes and motifs, made popular through a wide range of romances and other sources, in order to help propagate a certain ambiguity within the poem: one that feeds into the broader epistemological themes that are present within the text. More specifically, this article shows that the poet's manipulation of these motifs forms part of the broader unraveling of the poem, in which both the dreamer's and the reader's ability to comprehend the nature of the vision develops as the poem progresses. Drawing on two works in particular, the fourteenth-century alliterative romance <i>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</i> and Chrétien de Troyes's twelfth-century French romance <i>Le Conte du Graal</i>, this article argues that <i>Pearl</i> parallels these texts in the way that they utilize otherworldly conventions to inhibit both the protagonist's and the reader's ability to rationalize the events taking place within the poem. By identifying the poet's use of fairy conventions in <i>Pearl</i>, a poem that consistently draws attention to the limits of human knowledge, this article examines, from a fresh perspective, the poet's exploration of ineffability and of the divide between material and spiritual modes of existence.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":45500,"journal":{"name":"STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sip.2024.a934226","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:
This article focuses on the parallels that can be drawn between the characters and landscapes of the fourteenth-century Pearl poem and the fairy characters and otherworlds that frequently appear in works of medieval romance. It argues that the Pearl-poet is consciously engaging with readily identifiable fairy themes and motifs, made popular through a wide range of romances and other sources, in order to help propagate a certain ambiguity within the poem: one that feeds into the broader epistemological themes that are present within the text. More specifically, this article shows that the poet's manipulation of these motifs forms part of the broader unraveling of the poem, in which both the dreamer's and the reader's ability to comprehend the nature of the vision develops as the poem progresses. Drawing on two works in particular, the fourteenth-century alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chrétien de Troyes's twelfth-century French romance Le Conte du Graal, this article argues that Pearl parallels these texts in the way that they utilize otherworldly conventions to inhibit both the protagonist's and the reader's ability to rationalize the events taking place within the poem. By identifying the poet's use of fairy conventions in Pearl, a poem that consistently draws attention to the limits of human knowledge, this article examines, from a fresh perspective, the poet's exploration of ineffability and of the divide between material and spiritual modes of existence.
摘要:本文主要探讨了十四世纪珍珠诗中的人物和风景与中世纪浪漫主义作品中经常出现的仙女人物和异世界之间的相似之处。这篇文章认为,珍珠诗人有意识地采用了易于辨认的仙女主题和图案,这些主题和图案在各种浪漫主义作品和其他资料中广为流传,以帮助在诗歌中传播某种模糊性:这种模糊性与文本中更广泛的认识论主题相辅相成。更具体地说,本文表明诗人对这些主题的处理构成了诗歌更广泛的解构的一部分,其中梦者和读者理解幻象本质的能力都随着诗歌的进展而发展。本文特别借鉴了两部作品,即十四世纪的拟声罗曼史《高文爵士与绿骑士》(Sir Gawain and the Green Knight)和十二世纪法国罗曼史《圣杯记》(Chrétien de Troyes),认为《珍珠》与这两部作品相似,都是利用异世界的惯例来抑制主人公和读者将诗中发生的事件合理化的能力。珍珠》一诗始终提请人们注意人类知识的局限性,本文通过鉴别诗人在这首诗中对仙界惯例的使用,从一个全新的视角审视了诗人对不可言说性以及物质和精神存在模式之间的分野的探索。
期刊介绍:
Founded in 1903, Studies in Philology addresses scholars in a wide range of disciplines, though traditionally its strength has been English Medieval and Renaissance studies. SIP publishes articles on British literature before 1900 and on relations between British literature and works in the Classical, Romance, and Germanic Languages.