Talk:Gawain Poet

Untitled
But WHY is he called The Pearl Poet? If anyone knows...I'd like to know.


 * Literary historians agree that the same person wrote Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness. However, they do not know his or her name, or any thing else about him. When refering to the authorof these pieces, it is easier to write "The Pearl Poet" than to write "The author of Pearl".  Dsmdgold 03:23, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

He is also called the Pearl Poet because each of the poems features pearls in some form, and he talks a lot about purity (defined very broadly). I've edited to reflect this.Evkharper (talk) 02:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be great if this article discussed his unique style and gave some of the specifics that unite the poems. He's at least as skillful a poet as Chaucer, and some prefer him, so, despite not knowing any specifics of his biography, we can talk about his dialect (which is unusually not far from Chaucer's) and the dates of composition, and the manuscript details of Cotton Nero a x, and his prosody. Geogre 20:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

It is possible that we have a hint in the use of Old Norse that this is the child of an Earl - i.e. (in a hybrid of Welsh and the Norse derived English title) ap Earl - though, this is more likely to be the object of the poem rather than its author. Pearls were so precious that their ownership for display was restricted to the high nobility, though commoners might harvest them and merchants exchange them. It seems unlikely, therefore, that anyone but a noble would know or care much about them as objects of beauty. 210.50.17.162 08:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC) Ian Ison

I'm not sure I understand this comment. 'Pearl' refers to the human subject of the poem 'Pearl', which also references a large number of other gems which would not have been in common use. The imagery of the poem draws heavily from the book of Revelation in the Bible, which describes the twelve gates being made of pearls. In any case, 'Earl' is not Old Norse - which would be Jarl - but Old English 'eorl'. Martin Turner 00:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

a woman?
Could the Pearl Poet have been a woman? The poet was obviously Christian. We nothing of this mysterious person except by their poems. And the poet is not remembered to this day. The tone of Sir Gawain sounds distinctly female. All these reasons seem to have me convinced that the poet was an educated woman who could not be properly accredited for her work. What do the rest of you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Working for Him (talk • contribs) 21:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen any evidence or research pointing that way. The problem is that the other three, less famous works are not distinctly female at all. They are religious in nature, possibly written by a religious figure. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying that I haven't seen any research suggesting that the author was female. Wrad 21:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The author is unlikely to have been female, given the historical context. Most authors in this period are anonymous regardless of gender, well-remembered figures like Chaucer are the exception rather than the rule. I would disagree on the 'tone' of SGGK being female, after all, the author shows an in-depth knowledge of the minutiae of hunting, weaponry and other male-dominated aspects of courtly culture. Furthermore, Pearl's first-person narrator is evidently male, and there is some evidence in the poems that the author may have been a cleric in minor orders. Obviously there is scant material to work with overall, but the burden of proof is certainly on those advocating a female author. ANB (talk) 15:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know the gender of the author, but will simply mention that imagery of women hunting with bow and spear is easy enough to find in late Medieval illuminations. Pascalulu88 (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I came to this talk section to make a comment that the use of "him or her" seems ridiculous and, to me, utterly grating since it seems to suggest some "equal probability" that the poet might be a woman. A very unlikely proposition, indeed, at the time. I would much prefer to see the main text altered so that "him or her" is changed to "the poet." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.212.92.200 (talk) 18:11, 19 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Since no one has taken action this excellent advice in over a year, I am making these changes. "him or her" and "(s)he" seem distracting, counter-grammatical and unhelpful in context. Please feel free to revert. User:Kevin.159.53 posting from IP address 159.53.174.143 (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Title of the article
To revert to the question and answer of 2005 -

a. The anonymous author of a poem is not uncommonly known as 'the [x] poet', where [x] is the title of the poem.

b. More interestingly, why is this article lodged under the title Pearl poet'? The article itself makes it clear that the author of Pearl is commonly thought to be the author of Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience and Purity (or Cleanliness). In my circles, (s)he is commonly referred to as 'the Gawain poet' rather than 'the Pearl poet'; and this article seems to approach agreement with this, in that there are the same number of mentions of 'Gawain poet' and 'Pearl poet'. One would expect the number using the article heading to outnumber the cross references. I suggest that the article be moved to 'Gawain poet', and that this become the link. I'll leave it to a more experienced Wikipedian to do the moving because of any knock-on effects or losses I might cause.

MacAuslan 15:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The split between "Gawain Poet" and "Pearl Poet" is actually about fifty/fifty as far as I've seen. If you type in "Gawain Poet" it will redirect here. Neither one is really more correct than the other, and pearl poet is kind of rooted into wikipedia now. I'm not sure what part a means, though. Could you clarify? Wrad 19:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The answer is that some people don't like to use "Pearl Poet" because they don't want to be reminded about that wonderfully religious poem. They prefer Gawain because they think that poem isn't religious, which they are of course wrong about. And what's with this nonsense about the Pearl Poet possibly being a woman? Somebody above says that GGK reads like it was written by a woman? Ridiculous. Get out of here with your petty personal causes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk) 16:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Pearl-poet is probably the most objective name for this author. As I understand it, the tendency to call him this derived from the fact that Pearl is the first poem in the manuscript. The name 'the Gawain-poet' is primarily used on the more subjective grounds that SGGK is his most well-known work today. ANB (talk) 20:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * "some people don't like to use "Pearl Poet" because they don't want to be reminded about that wonderfully religious poem." Do you know such people? Or is this supposition to support one of your own personal causes? Pascalulu88 (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

The first comment in this section is correct: one refers to the poet as the writer of whichever poem is under discussion, i.e. "the [x] poet" where [x] is the poem. In discussing the poet as the author of all the works in the manuscript (which may be the case) it is usual to refer to the Gawain Poet. This is accepted practice in literary studies, and should therefore also be the title of the article. In many years of English literary study, I have never heard anyone refer to the Pearl Poet where the author of the works taken together was intended, and to title the article in this way appears capricious. Perhaps it is someone's personal project to shift attention toward Pearl as a work. With regard to subsequent comments: religious content has nothing to do with it. Certainly both works are solidly Christian, as you would expect from what was a predominantly (if not exclusively, at that time) Christian country. The order of the poems in the manuscript is irrelevant. Sir Gawain is the best known because it is the most significant for the history of literature and therefore the most taught at undergraduate level. It is considered the best Middle English romance. It is also (for the record, and not that it particularly matters) twice as long as Pearl (twice as many lines). Without referring to Wikipedia's tedious supply of editorial policies (perhaps someone else could do that between Twinkies), I'd have thought that an encyclopedia, even a spurious populist one pretending to authoritativeness, should follow standard academic practice, rather than a supposed objectivity based on subjective principles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.74.97.205 (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I know nobody is looked at this in a long ass time, but I'm really confused by this article's insistence that "the Pearl Poet" is less common, because being in the medieval literary academy, I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard or read someone use "the Gawain Poet." "The Pearl Poet" is used almost exclusively. 2600:1700:4A5D:5210:E5DE:4841:865D:826E (talk) 00:40, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The relatively recent works in the refs like "Brewer, edited by Derek; Gibson, Jonathan (1997). A companion to the Gawain-poet (Reprinted. ed.). Cambridge" don't exactly bear this out. Johnbod (talk) 05:31, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "Gawain-poet" is the most commonly cited term by a long way; note the reference in the first paragraph confirms that "Pearl-poet" is less common.Svejk74 (talk) 18:05, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

The village of Cotton?
Could anyone elaborate on this line in the John (or Hugh) Massey section?

"A later suggestion is John Massey of Cotton (a village mentioned in Gawain); this was first put forward by Nolan and Farley-Hills in 1971.[10]"

I have been attempting to corroborate this without success. I cannot find a village named Cotton in Sir Gawain. Nor can I find any mention of it in Nolan's and Farley-Hills's 1971 article.

Was "Cotton" in this case possibly a typo for "Chester" or "Cheshire" (locations that do appear in the article, at least)? Apologies if I've simply been missing something obvious; any help will be greatly appreciated! --Mjkuhns (talk) 22:06, 26 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You're right, no such village is named in the poem. I'm removing the claim that it is. --Antiquary (talk) 22:23, 13 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The Lancastrian retainer "John Massey of Cotton" was one of the candidates put forward by various people. The claim that Cotton was mentioned in the poem seems to be a garbled version of Theodore Silverstein's suggestion that the word, or fragment of a word, "oton" written on the margin of the Gawain manuscript next to line 1544 (which talks about where Gawain lives) should actually be read as "Coton", reinforcing the idea of John Massey's authorship. It is all very tenuous.Svejk74 (talk) 19:06, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

"less commonly 'the Pearl Poet'"
I'm curious as to where this claim that "Pearl Poet" is less common is coming from. In my studies and my work as a medievalist, I could probably count on my fingers the number of scholars I've met who use "Gawain Poet" - and all of them are older academics. "Pearl Poet" has been the standard as long as I've been in the field. Even a quick search of the MLA International Bibliography turns up nearly equal results under both titles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:4A5D:5210:C5B0:EA2C:4FE7:1DBC (talk) 00:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The statement that the most common name is "Gawain-Poet" is sourced and originates in Andrew's essay in Brewer's 1997 book. "Gawain-poet" was nearly always used when I was an undergraduate unless specifically discussing Pearl.Svejk74 (talk) 08:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)