Table of Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction
1. The Manuscript
2. Authorship
3. Pearl
4. Cleanness
5. Patience
6. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
7. The Four Poems

Select Bibliography

Note on Language and Metre

TEXT AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Note to the Text
Pearl
Cleanness
Patience
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Glossary

Appendix: Passages from the Vulgate

About the Author

Malcolm Andrew was previously Professor of English Language and Literature at Queen's University Belfast. Ronald Waldron was previously a lecturer and Emeritus Reader in English Language and Medieval Literature at King's College, University of London.

Reviews

Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron have fully revised their standard edition of the four poems of the Pearl-poet. The translation, along with the updated and extended critical and explanatory material, will render the new edition an extremely valuable resource for students at all levels. I recommend to readers this revision of an edition that several generations of students and teachers have preceded me in endorsing. In a book of manageable size, the editors have succeeded in reconciling reliable scholarship with modern accessibility, and in balancing attention to individual poems with encouragement to explore the Gawain-corpus as a whole. Their edition provides a setting that can only deepen twenty-first-century appreciation for these luminous Middle English poems. The fifth edition, overall, is a tremendous achievement, and secures Andrew and Waldon as the authoritative critical text and student edition of these poems. The Poet has a talent for turns of phrase evoking beauty, splendor and grace... this modern translation of the Pearl Poet is quite valuable as a scholarly resource.