Pearl

38. Pearl : A New Verse Translation by Marie Borroff
OPD: 1977, Pearl is a late-14th-century poem
format: 56-page paperback
acquired: January read: Jun 2-15 time reading: 3:09, 3.4 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Middle English Dream poem theme: Chaucer
about the author: The Pearl poet is unknown, but wrote in a North-West Midlands dialect of Middle English. Mary Borroff (1923-2019) was an American poet, translator, and the Sterling Professor of English emerita at Yale University, born in New York City.

Pearl is a medieval Old English poem found on only one manuscript, along with [Sir Gwain and the Green Knight], [Patience], and Purity (sometimes named [Cleanness]). The author or authors are unknown, but the poems use the same local dialect, a show more 14th-century northwest Midlands dialect, and they are thematically consistent and Christian.

I can't comment on the dialect, because I read this in translation. It's an interesting high-end translation. The translator was deeply into the poem and its rhythms. She replicated both the cadence and the rhymes, and it makes for easy reading. And she has nice afterward explaining some of this. It's an admirable effort and I feel very impressed by it. Of course, she changed the wording, and this means something is lost. A lot actually. If I read this again, I would like the original with notes.

Although the whole book took me three hours, I read the poem itself in an hour total. It reads quick. It's about a parent who lost a daughter and has a dream vision where he meets his daughter again. She stands across an uncrossable river, in her Christian paradise afterlife, one of 144,000 brides of the lamb Christ. She is happy. He questions the girl, and she explains paradise to him and then sends to where he can view it. It's described in the poetry. When the parent tries to cross the stream, he awakes.

The Revelations-based Christian message doesn't do much for me. Everything good to an extreme in a way that seems painfully relentless. The meeting of a lost child is, however, very meaningful. We all lose our children eventually, hopefully to their own independence. And, of course, we all fear any alternative.

Another meaning pertains to the recent novel, [30440713::Pearl by Sian Hughes], which references the poem gently. You can enjoy that book without reading this. (I loved it!) But having now read this, I can relate it to the book and the relationship adds much to both works.

But at the bottom this was an hour of reading a poem in translation. Unless I read it again, it will just slip by. I'll barely remember.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/360386#8558507 show less

I read this as it was featured in the BBC series "The Art that made us" and I've decided to try and read all the text items contained in the series. Excellent series, btw, well worth a watch.
This features in the programme of the middle ages & the black death. It one of those that almost got away, surviving in one single manuscript. Believed to be written by the same author as Gawain and the green Knight, its contemporary with Chaucer, but written in a northern dialect. This translation is by SImon Armitage, who has also translated Gawain & the alliterative Morte d'Arthur.
I quite like alliterative poetry over the rhyme at the end of a line style, something about the rhythm of the words carries you along. Although in this case the show more subject of the text was distinctly less appealing. The surmise is that a jeweler is bemoaning the loss of a peal and it slowly becomes clear he is discussing a person, not a jewel. He lies down in the garden where he lost her, goes to sleep and a lot of the poem reports a dream. He is transported to a paradise and across the river he sees his lost pearl and talks to her. The first portion, about how he lost her and his grief is poignant, the middle third a bit of a lecture in religious thought and how he should accept his lot, the final third he wakes and is in the garden, but feels that he has both lost her all over again and some consolation.
For the subject matter of the middle portion detracted from the experience, as it felt overly didactic. I sill like the form of the poem, just less keen on its subject matter.
The introduction on the poem's rhyme scheme and how the author approached the translation was interesting and added to my appreciation of the structure of the work. show less

This is a modern translation of a 12th century poem. It's starts off really fun and interesting to read but about half way through it gets wrapped up in a load of Christian moralising nonsense about life after death and our 'heavenly reward'. Probably to be expected for the time (though Sir Gawain and the green knight and the Death of Arther don't get too nonsensy) but it really put me off. No surprise as I'm pissed of by Christianity most of the time. If you can cope with Jesus nonsense then you'll probably enjoy the second half more than me. The writing is lovely.

The introduction where the translator goes into the intricacies of translating the poem to modern English is fascinating. I would read a whole book on that, sadly only 6 pages.

From a structure standpoint, a complex, well-written work (barring a few lines blatantly padded out for virtue of maintaining the rhyme scheme).

From a content standpoint, the divergence between the Pearl Poet's language and Chancery English makes it difficult to evaluate at times — some words have disappeared from modern English, while others are debated as to just which of several words it is. (A situation not helped by the poet's frequently varying spelling and its existence in but a single manuscript.)

Let's just say that it's both technically impressive and an important artefact of the history of English letters, even if the subject matter may not be to everyone's taste, and leave it at that.

Incredible translation.

Complex but beautiful.

Book Description: Oxford University at the Clarendon Press Oxford (1958). Second printing Blue cloth, small octavo (5 x 7.5 inches), pp lvii, 167. B/w frontis. Near fine, - no dust jacket