Pearl (poem)

Pearl 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, Patience, and Cleanness and may have composed St. Erkenwald.

Genre and poetics

The poem, an allegory of the genre known as dream vision is composed of 101 stanzas of 12 lines each with the rhyme scheme a b a b a b a b b c b c. Stanzas are grouped in units of five (except for XV, which has six). Alliteration is used frequently, but not consistently throughout the poem.

Related Topics:
Allegory - Dream - Vision - Stanzas - Alliteration

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