Cleanness

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Cleanness
Purity
Author(s)The Gawain Poet (anonymous)
Language Middle English, North West Midlands dialect
Datelate 14th century
Provenance Henry Savile, Yorkshire
Seriestogether with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Pearl and Patience
Manuscript(s) Cotton Nero A.x.
First printed edition1864 Richard Morris
Genre Poem, didactic, homiletic and alliterative verse
Verse form Alliterative Revival
Length1812 lines
SubjectVirtues of cleanliness and delights of married love

Cleanness (Middle English: Clannesse) is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the Pearl poet or Gawain poet , also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Pearl , and Patience , and may have also composed St. Erkenwald .

Contents

The poem is found solely in the Pearl manuscript, Cotton Nero A x . That manuscript also contains Pearl, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. None of the poems has a title or divisions of chapters, but the breaks are marked by large initial letters of blue, and there are twelve illustrations (or illuminations) contained within the manuscript, depicting scenes from the four poems. Each of these poems is entirely unique to this one manuscript. Cleanness (which is an editorial title) is also known by the editorial title Purity.

The manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x is in the British Library. The first complete publication of Cleanness was in Early English Alliterative Poems in the West Midland Dialect of the fourteenth century, printed by the Early English Text Society in 1864.

Cleanness is a description of the virtues of cleanliness of body and the delights of married love. It takes three subjects from the Bible as its illustrations: the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fall of Belshazzar. Each of these is described powerfully, and the poetry is among the finest in Middle English. In each case, the poet warns his readers about the dangers of defilement and the joys of purity.

Genre and poetics

A didactic, homiletic poem, Cleanness consists of 1812 lines. Alliteration is used consistently throughout the poem, averaging around three alliterating words per line. The unidentified narrator or preacher speaks in the first person throughout the work. It is an exemplum from the perspective of many.

Narrative

The opening lines of the poem (ll. 1–50) function as a peroration in which the narrator states his theme by contrasting cleanness and purity with filth. He also points out that God hates filth and banishes those who are not properly dressed.

A paraphrase of the Parable of the Great Banquet follows in lines 51–171. This exemplum, explained by lines 171–192, follows directly from the previous sartorial metaphor and serves to show why the hearers should give attention to cleanness. Following this, lines 193–556 expound on God's forgiveness and wrath, using the Fall of the Angels, the Fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 3), and the story of Noah (Gen 6: 5–32, 7, 8) (the first major exemplum of the poem) to demonstrate these divine attributes.

A transition (ll. 557–599), including a comment on how God reacts to sin (esp. lechery), follows.

In a second exemplum, the poet retells the stories of Abraham and Lot (Gen. 18:1–19, 28) (ll. 600 - 1048), including a description of the Dead Sea as the poet understood it.

In another transition (ll. 1050–1148), the narrator explains the symbolism of the second exemplum, ending with a description of God as strongly vengeful.

The third, and by far the longest, exemplum (ll. 1149–1796) recounts the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the transfer of the Temple treasures to Babylon where they were treated with reverence by the king. But after Nebuchadnezzar died, Belshazzar, a man given to the indulgence of his lusts, succeeded him. During an enormous drunken feast, he ordered that the Temple vessels be brought in and that everyone be served in them. God then determines to punish him. A huge hand appears, writes a message on the wall, and vanishes. No one can interpret this message. At the Queen's suggestion, Daniel is called, and he interprets the three words and predicts Belshazzar's downfall.

In his conclusion (ll. 1797–1812), the narrator summarizes by arguing that uncleanness angers God, and cleanness comforts Him.

Author

Though the real name of "The Pearl Poet" (or poets) is unknown, some inferences about him or her can be drawn from an informed reading of his/her works. The original manuscript is known in academic circles as Cotton Nero A.x, following a naming system used by one of its owners, Robert Cotton, a collector of Medieval English texts from the Shropshire/Cheshire dynastyof that name. [1]

Before the manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile of Bank in Yorkshire. [2] Little is known about its previous ownership, and until 1824, when the manuscript was introduced to the academic community in a second edition of Thomas Warton's History edited by Richard Price, it was almost entirely unknown. [3] [4] Now held in the British Library, it has been dated to the late 14th century, so the poet was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales , though it is highly unlikely that they ever met. [5]

The three other works found in the same manuscript as Pearl (commonly known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Patience , and Pearl ) are often considered to be written by the same author who is accepted to have originated in the Staffordshire/North Shropshire/Cheshire area.

However, the manuscript containing these poems was transcribed by a copyist and not by the original poet. Although nothing explicitly suggests that all four poems are by the same poet, comparative analysis of dialect, verse form, and diction have pointed towards single-authorship. [6]

What is known today about the poet is largely general. As J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, after reviewing the text's allusions, style, and themes, concluded in 1925:

He was a man of serious and devout mind, though not without humour; he had an interest in theology, and some knowledge of it, though an amateur knowledge perhaps, rather than a professional; he had Latin and French and was well enough read in French books, both romantic and instructive; but his home was in the West Midlands of England; so much his language shows, and his metre, and his scenery. [7]

The most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire. [8] He is known to have lived in the dialect region of the Pearl Poet and is thought to have written the poem, St. Erkenwald , which some scholars argue bears stylistic similarities to Gawain. St. Erkenwald, however, has been dated by some scholars to a time outside the Gawain poet's era. Thus, ascribing authorship to John Massey is still controversial, and most critics consider the Gawain poet an unknown. [6]

St Erkenwald, the subject of a poem thought by some to be by the some poet Chertsey Breviary - St. Erkenwald.jpg
St Erkenwald, the subject of a poem thought by some to be by the some poet

Technique

It uses the homiletic principles of education with entertainment (Horace's utile et dulce) and is primarily rooted in Biblical stories. The reference to the fall of the angels is drawn from pseudepigrapha. The technique of presenting exempla and then explicating them as demonstrations of moral principles is characteristic of many sermons of the medieval period. Here the poet uses three exempla with explication in the transitions between them.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game, and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel; it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.

Patience is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain-Poet", also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Cleanness and may have composed St. Erkenwald. This is thought to be true because the techniques and vocabulary of regional dialect of the unknown author is that of Northwest Midlands, located between Shropshire and Lancashire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gawain Poet</span> Unknown medieval poet

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<i>Pearl</i> (poem) 14th-century English poem

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<i>St. Erkenwald</i> (poem)

St Erkenwald is a fourteenth-century alliterative poem in Middle English, perhaps composed in the late 1380s or early 1390s. It has sometimes been attributed, owing to the Cheshire/Shropshire/Stafffordshire Dialect in which it is written, to the Pearl poet who probably wrote the poems Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earconwald</span> 7th-century Bishop of London and saint

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potteries dialect</span> English dialect of the North Midlands of England

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The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a 4346-line Middle English alliterative poem, retelling the latter part of the legend of King Arthur. Dating from about 1400, it is preserved in a single copy in the 15th-century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript, now in Lincoln Cathedral Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheshire dialect</span> Dialect of English

The Cheshire dialect is a Northern English dialect spoken in the county of Cheshire in North West England. It has similarities with the dialects of the surrounding counties of Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Derbyshire.

Ronald Alan Waldron is an English medievalist, considered a pre-eminent expert in the field of early English literature. He wrote many books and was a lecturer at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and King's College London. He made an especial focus on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Wynnere and Wastoure is a fragmentary Middle English poem written in alliterative verse around the middle of the 14th century.

The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne is an Arthurian romance of 702 lines written in Middle English alliterative verse. Despite its title, it centres on the deeds of Sir Gawain. The poem, thought to have been composed in Cumberland in the late 14th or early 15th century, survives in four different manuscripts from widely separated areas of England.

The Alliterative Revival is a term adopted by literary historians to refer to the resurgence of poetry using the alliterative verse form in Middle English between c. 1350 and 1500. Alliterative verse was the traditional verse form of Old English poetry; the last known alliterative poem prior to the Revival was Layamon's Brut, which dates from around 1190.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Massey (poet)</span>

John Massey is one conjectured name of the Gawain Poet, author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and probably of several other 14th-century Middle English poems. Internal evidence from the text of the poems and marginalia of the manuscript suggests the name "John Massey" or similar; contemporary records of people of the name who might have been poets include one from the village of Cotton in Cheshire.

Thorlac Francis Samuel Turville-Petre is an English philologist who is Professor Emeritus and former head of the School of English at the University of Nottingham. He specializes in the study of Middle English literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pearl Manuscript</span> 14th century English decorated text in book

The Pearl Manuscript, also known as the Gawain manuscript, is an illuminated manuscript produced somewhere in northern England in the late 14th century or the beginning of the 15th century. It is one of the best-known Middle English manuscripts, the only one containing alliterative verse solely, and the oldest surviving English manuscript to have full-page illustrations. It contains the only surviving copies of four of the masterpieces of medieval English literature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. It has been described as "one of the greatest manuscript treasures for medieval literature", and "the most famous of all romance manuscripts".

References

  1. ↑ "Web Resources for Pearl-poet Study: A Vetted Selection". Univ. of Calgary. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  2. ↑ "Pearl: Introduction". Medieval Institute Publications, Inc. 2001. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
  3. ↑ Turville-Petre, Thorlac. The Alliterative Revival. Woodbridge: Brewer etc., 1977. pp. 126–129. ISBN   0-85991-019-9
  4. ↑ Burrow, J. Ricardian Poetry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971. ISBN   0-7100-7031-4 pp. 4–5
  5. ↑ "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period, Vol. 1., ed. Joseph Black, et al. Toronto: Broadview Press, Introduction, p. 235. ISBN   1-55111-609-X
  6. 1 2 Nelles, William. "The Pearl-Poet". Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition Database: MagillOnLiterature Plus, 1958.
  7. ↑ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Edited by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, revised Norman Davis, 1925. introduction, xv. ASIN B000IPU84U
  8. ↑ Peterson, Clifford J. "The Pearl-Poet and John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire". The Review of English Studies, New Series. (1974) 25.99 pp. 257–266.

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