Parl_as_Vission_Poem

Pearl as a vision poem The 14th century Middle English allegorical poem, Pearl begins with the story of a precious jewel lost and the consequent quest for the gem, which ultimately becomes a spiritual quest as in the pursuit of the Holy Grail— PEARL, pleasing to prince's will, Set ail-too sweetly in clearest gold! ^ A gem such precious worth to fulfill Ne*er saw I from Orient, that say I bold. So round, SQjuijrely x^diant still. Alas I in an arbour it from me rolled ;' In the grass I lost it, the ground it got ; I pine, sore -wounded, in love-bonds old, For that pearl, mine own, withouten spot Later understood as the lamentation of a father’s heart at the death of a daughter, overpowers the temptation of becoming a heart-rending lament as the poem suddenly takes the form of a dream-narrative. The narrator has the bold vision of a beautiful maiden bedecked in pearl. The lady makes the father aware of the insignificance of worldly loss, as his notion of loss is not regarded in heaven. The grown-up Pearl tutors the father in her present heightened status. That her worldly stature has been transformed is solely because of the fact that she has attained redemption in having been washed by the blood of Christ. She is presently one of the 144,000 virgins, who are counted among the retinue of Christ. The lady tutors the narrator in Christian precepts through several parables and ultimately shows him an image of the Heavenly City of Jerusalem. The narrator attains the manna of salvation even in this verbal encounter which all takes place in a dream. The narrator is taken back to reality as his dream breaks as he attempts to cross the crystal clear stream dividing the earthly and heavenly worlds. After the narrator swoons in the earthly garden, his mind is unraveled in a garden where the landscape is transformed into a place of natural grace and splendour. The earthly paradise which arises so frequently in medieval literature is seen in Pearl. The idyllic Garden of Eden however has a sensual touch of love gardens of medieval literature. He forgets whatever had been lost and his grief-stricken consciousness surfeits in the sensual pleasure of fragrances of flowers and fruit, birdsong, the light through the leaves, etc. The interrogation of the narrator that ensues becomes a close-knit dialogue that introduces a story. The flabbergasted narrator struggles to place her within known frames of reference and even to reclaim her: how can she be lost (dead) and found' Now that he has found her again, how can he give her up' Where does she live' How can she, who lived "not two yer" (line 483) in our land, be a queen in heaven' The visionary moment though guides the narrator into achieving the real knowledge of salvation; he ultimately sees the vision of Jerusalem. The stream becomes the dividing line which though he can envision cannot cross, as it remains bounded by the limitations of worldly ties. In most medieval dream-allegories an air of familiarity makes the narrative homely, but here the wide range of metaphors and symbols make the story highly complicated. The very title is significant as Pearl is both “precious jewel,” and a child— the maiden is the dead child, yet not the child, but the grown up lady; she is a maiden and a bride; the lost jewel is not lost but found; the dead is no dead but one who has attained immortal life in death. The world is a place of worldly gains and yet the other end of life seems more beautiful and attractive, once he had attained at least a glimpse of that world in his dream. Here the dream stands as a lesson, a spiritual one and one spreading the real knowledge of life and death. Pearl has often been interpreted as “soul,” or “Eucharist,” or “the nature of blessedness”. Some critics have linked these formal issues with the idea of “an incarnational art and emphasized numeric symbolism and Gothic visual representations of the sacred”— The Italian Divine Comedy by Dante and the French Roman de la Rose, begun by Guillaume de Lorris and continued by Jean de Meun, both seem to have been read and known by the author of Pearl. The use of the dream as a narrative point of departure also structures the English Piers Plowman by William Langland and the four great dream visions by Geoffrey Chaucer. What these narratives share - and indeed, what it may be said that all stories of crossing-over share - is a place of possibility, where the narrative begins with a sense of being stuck or even trapped and then moves into a place of freedom or expansiveness. In his dream the narrator of Pearl slips into an "aventure," which means "marvel" or "quest" (line 64). Dante at the opening of Inferno is trapped in a dark wood, in the middle of his life, but in his vision becomes a traveler in time and space, circling down through hell and then climbing up to a vision of paradise. Harry Potter is virtually a prisoner of the Dursleys, but transposed to Hogwarts, he is the airborne star of quidditch. (Pearl Edited by Sarah Stanbury. Originally Published in Pearl Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001). A great deal of critical discussion has taken place since the poem was first published in the late 19th century on the question of what genre the poem belonged to. Early editors, such as Morris, Gollancz and Osgood, took it for granted that the poem was an elegy for the poet's lost daughter (presumed to have been named Margaret, i.e. 'pearl'); a number of scholars however, including W. H. Schofield, R. M. Garrett, and W. K. Greene, found such interpretation faulty and instead unravelled a deeper allegorical significance. However the charm of the poem whether seen as an elegy or allegory, actually remains significant for the brilliance of the projection of the narrative and characters, cast in a prolonged, sparkling dream.