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The transformation of the

physical in the middle English
Pearl
Nikki Stiller

New Jersey Institute of Technology ,

Published online: 13 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Nikki Stiller (1982) The transformation of the physical in the
middle English Pearl , English Studies, 63:5, 402-409
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00138388208598200

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PHYSICAL

MIDDLE ENGLISH PEARL

IN

THE

Much of the poignancy of Pearl stems from the narrator's very human attachment to the things of this world. He experiences the loss of his beloved daughter
first and foremost as an anguish of physical separation. In order to illuminate
the narrator's sense of deprivation, the poet has emphasized his sensitivity to
nature, beauty, and the phenomenal world in general. Moreover, one of the
major questions posed by the work is what the relation of man to that phenomenal world should be. Whereas the highly wrought craftsmanship of the poem
has been duly noted,1 no one, to my knowledge, has explored the thematic
implications of that craftsmanship in connection with the transmutation of
natural phenomena in Pearl from raw material to the stuff of Heaven. This
transmutation is one of the keys to the meaning of the dream-vision and the
work as a whole.
As the poem begins, the narrator evokes his emotional state and his reactions
prior to the vision. Throughout the first section, his sensuality is so keen that it
drives him finally into the 'slepyng-sla3te' (line 59) in which he sees the Maiden.
Perhaps nowhere in English poetry outside of Keats is the abundance luxuriance rather of nature so richly evoked, and so oppressive:
pat spot of spyse3 mot nede3 sprede,
per such ryche3 to rot is runne,2 (lines 25-6)

The opening stanza on the Pearl herself prepares us for what follows in the
description of the garden:
So rounde, so reken in vche araye,
So sma!, so smope her syde3 were, (lines 5-6)

Line 6 is a conventional medieval courtly love phrase generally employed to

describe the beloved woman. The narrator's use of the term 'luf-daungere' (line
11) is a continuation of that kind of imagery.3 I am not suggesting an erotic
attachment to the lost child, but I am suggesting an all-encompassing sensuality
on the part of the narrator. Withtthis sensuality comes a resentment against
that very nature which had formerly bestowed her bounty upon him. Though
1

Most notably, Ian Bishop, Pearl in its Setting (New York: 1968) and P. M. Kean, Pearl: An
Interpretation (New York, 1967).
Quotations from Pearl, unless otherwise indicated, are from the edition of E. V. Gordon
(Oxford, 1953).
See W. R. J. Barron, 'Luf-daungere', A Medieval Miscellany Presented to Eugene Vinaver
(Manchester, 1963), pp. 1-18.

402

he is still affected by the sweet song of the birds, for example (line 19), such
innocent pleasure is immediately sullied by remembrance of his own loss:

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For sope per fleten to me fele,

To penke hir color so clad in clot.
O moul, pou marre3 a myry iuele,
My priuy perle wythouten spotte, (lines 21-4)

The profusion of nature irks the narrator in his grief, and the absurdity of
nature's gratuitous beauty drives him to despair. He can just barely accept the
cyclical processes which the continuation of life necessitates: 'For vch gresse
mot grow of grayne3 dede; / No whete were elle3 to wone3 wonne' (lines 31-2).
But the luxuriant growth of 'gilofre, gyngure and gromylyoun' (line 43) simply
exacerbates his sorrow. As E. V. Gordon points out, since the Song of Songs
the garden of spices has taken on particular associations; he notes that 'in
romances spices were commonly found in any landscape or garden intending to
be surpassingly charming or luxuriant ... spices were then costly, and the
flowers of spice-plants were believed to have the richest scents'.4 We are invited
to compare the luxuriance of the garden with the narrator's poverty in loss. In
his rebellion against the ways of nature, and, ultimately, those of God, the
narrator before the dream vision is blind to the distinction between kinds of
beauty, a distinction which the Pearl-maiden herself endeavors to explain later
in the poem:
For pat pou Ieste3 wat3 bot a rose
bat flowred and fayled as kynde hyt gef.
Now bur3 kynde of be kyste pat hyt con close
To a perle of prys hit is put in pref. (lines 269-72)

Although he deeply resents the natural beauty of the place, the narrator experiences, in the first section, a veritable assault of sensations, and primitive
ones at that:
Bifore pat spot my hande I spenned
For care ful colde bat to me ca3t;
A deuely dele in my hert denned,
ba3 resoun sette myseluen sa3t.
I playned my perle pat per \vat3 spenned
Wyth fyrce skylles bat faste fa3t;
pa3 kynde of Kryst me comfort kenned,
My wreched wylle in wo ay wra3te.
I feile vpon pat floury fia3t,
Suche odour to my herne3 schot;
I slode vpon a slepyng-sla3te
On pat precios perle wythouten spot, (lines 49-60)

It is not only grief that causes him to pass out but the extra burden of irony, of
nature flourishing in 'bat floury fla3t'. The narrator is compelled to return again
4

In the notes to his edition, p. 48.

403

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and again to 'bat spot', 'spot' being the key-word in the passage, and, of course,
the sight of his trauma. He is himself 'spenned', that is, imprisoned, by his
powerful sensations. Obviously, reason cannot help him. Only a temporary
release from his obsession can do that.
Such a release is forthcoming. The time at which the narrator enters into 'bat
erber grene' is 'In Augoste in a hy3 sesoun', the season of the Feast of the
Transfiguration. Several transfigurations or transmutations are heralded, that
of the child being the most obvious. Equally important is the transmutation of
the physical world within the dream. Since the narrator's rejection of natural
beauty is part of his rebellion against God's will, his joy in, and acceptance of,
beauty signifies a partial resolution of his spiritual dilemma.
*
* *

At the beginning of the dream, the narrator seems to have experienced a release
from his body and the demands of his senses:
Fro spot my spyryt per sprang in space;
My body on balke per bod in sweuen.
My goste is gon in Gode3 grace
In auenture per meruayle3 meuen. (lines 61-4)

He is still, however, somewhere in the world; albeit in an exotic part of it:

I ne wyste in bis worlde quere pat hit wace,
Bot I knew me keste per klyfe3 cleuen;
Towarde a foreste I bere be face,
Where rych rokke3 wer to dysceuen.
be Iy3t of hem my3t no mon leuen,
be glemande glory bat of hem glent; (lines 65-70)

So great is the beauty of the place, the narrator tells us somewhat later (Section
III), that it makes him forget his grief:
The dubbement dere of doun and dale3,
Of wod and water and wlonk playne3,
Bylde in me blys, abated my bale3,
Fordidden my stresse, dystryed my payne3. (lines 121-4)

This comfort comes before the Maiden appears. Sister M. Madeleva finds such
comfort inconsistent with purely human mourning and grief; she writes that 'in
the magic wonder of the place the poet forgot all grief, which would be highly
improbable in the case of an inconsolable father'.5 She deduces that 'such
beauty would be to him rather a mockery than a source of complete oblivion'.6
5

Pearl: A Study in Spiritual Dryness (Folcroft, Pa., 1969), p. 127. I do not wish to become
embroiled here in the debate as to whether or not the Pearl-maiden is the dreamer's real or
allegorical daughter. In the poem, she is referred to as nearer to him than 'aunte or nece' (line
233) and is a young child who could not even say a Paternoster at the time of her death. That
should suffice.
Madeleva, p. 127.

404

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We have seen, however, that it is in the first part of the poem, that prior to the
dream, that the beauty and abundance of nature seems a mockery not to the
'poet', of course, but to the persona. The beauty which so consoles the dreamer
is indeed also phenomenal, but it is the specific beauty of nature ordered by art,
in this case the art of the Divine Jeweler.
The dream-world is a transmutation of the natural world rather than a repudiation of it. The splendor which the dreamer beholds relates more closely to
that of Bercilak's castle and the Celtic courts of faerie than to Henry Suso's
vision of the Coelum Empyrean.7 It is specifically a world of color and light:
Dubbed wern alle bo downe3 syde3
Wyth crystal klyffe3 so cler of kynde.
Holtewode3 bry3t aboute hem byde3
Of bolle3 as blwe as ble of Ynde;
As bornyst syluer be lef on slyde3,
bat bike con trylle on vch a tynde.
Quen glem of glode3 agayn3 hem glyde3,
Wyth schymeryng schene fui schrylle bay schynde.
be grauayl bat on grounde con grynde
Wern precious perle3 of oryente:
be sunnebeme3 bot blo and blynde
In respecte of bat adubbement. (lines 73-84)

There are growing blossoms in this realm, and living creatures, birds, of 'flaumbande hwe3' (line 90). These birds 'songen wyth a swete asent' (line 94), that is,
in harmony: nature ordered. There is, as a matter of fact, an even greater
profusion in the dream-setting than there is in the garden. Here nature is also
intensified:
No bonk so byg bat did me dere3.
be fyrre in be fryth, be feier con ryse
be playn, be plontte3, be spyse, be pere3;
And rawe3 and rande3 and rych reuere3,
As fyldor fyn her bonkes brent, (lines 102-06)

The 'dubbemente of be derworth depe' (line 109) crowns the wonders of the
scene. There, between banks of beryl,
Swangeande swete be water con swepe,
Wyth a rownande rourde raykande ary3t.
In be founce per stonden stone3 stepe,
As glent pur glas pat glowed and gly3t,
As stremande sterne3, quen strope-men slepe;
Staren in welkyn in wynter ny3t;
For vche a pobbel in pole per py3t
Wat3 emerad, saffer, oper gemme gente,
pat alle be 103e lemed of Iy3t. (lines 110-19)

What has transformed the natural world is its 'adubbement'. Natural phenomena have lost their haphazard and even malevolent character.
7

Suso might have started with the same conventions, but the results are dissimilar in context; see
Madeleva, p. 129ff.

405

In considering the implications of 'adubbement' as used in the poem, we

should review the historical significance of jewels and jewelry. In A History of
Jewelry: 1100-1870, Joan Evans writes:

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Jewelry is one of the oldest of the decorative arts. It answers to the deep human love of intrinsically
beautiful materials, to the deep human wish for bodily beautification, and to the superstitious need
for reinforcing human powers by things that seem ... more lasting and more mysterious than man. 8

Although we are now in an age which tends to share Dean Swift's view of
precious stones, it is important to remember, when reading Pearl in particular,
that in former times the significance of jewels and gemstones was quite different. The soul, after all, is referred to not as the house or herd or coat of great
price but as the pearl of great price. The medieval lapidaries are testimony to
the value attributed to gems by our ancestors,9 and, although I do not think
that the Pearl-poet believed in the magical properties of jewels, he does share
the age's unabashed enthusiasm for them. Moreover, there are certain qualities
inherent in gem material that differentiate it from all other material. Jewels are,
to be sure, earthly phenomena. But, as Evans points out, they endure far longer
than mortal beings do. Thus, while not eternal, they may constitute a model,
for limited human beings, of what is eternal. Most importantly, their beauty is
unveiled by artifice, by the jeweler's art. It is no accident that Yeats was attracted by the highly refined glitter of Byzantium. The art of the jeweler can be
taken as the model of all art since pure beauty is its object.
The concept or image of the Deity as practitioner of the Eternal Art had
some currency in the medieval period and is found in such writings as St.
Bonaventura's Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum. Ian Bishop writes that 'nothing
emphasizes more strongly the fact that the poet thinks of the landscape as the
work of an artist than the use of "adubbemente" and "dubbed" as link-words
throughout the stanza-group'.10 The very form of the poem is a kind of imitatio
Dei, in this respect. Moreover, what the dreamer experiences when the great
artistry of the Deity is revealed to him in the opening section of the dream is an
esthetic reaction of the most powerful kind. George Santayana has written of
the 'dignity and range' of esthetic pleasure; 'the soul is glad', he says,
to forget its connection with the body and to fancy that it can travel over the world with the liberty
with which it changes the objects of its thought. The mind passes from China to Peru without any
conscious change in the local tensions of the body. This illusion of disembodiment is very exhilarating, while immersion in the flesh and confinement to some organ gives a tone of grossness and
selfishness to our consciousness.11

We shall see that when dogma and logic cannot reach the dreamer, the beautiful will clearly move him; but it will be the kind of beauty in which Creative
Force has shown its hand.
8
9

10
11

Joan Evans, A History of Jewelry: 1100-1870 (Boston, 1970), p. 39.

Particularly, for some reason, in England; see Joan Evans and Mary J. Serjeantson, Medieval
English Lapidaries London: E. E. T. S., 1960).
Pearl in its Setting, p. 90.
The Sense of Beauty (New York, 1896), pp. 36-7.

406

The dreamer is mistaken, nonetheless, in equating what remains earthly

beauty with the perfection of Heaven :

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More of wele wat3 in bat wyse

ben I cowbe telle ba3 I torn hade,
For vrbely herte my3t not sufyse
To be tenbe dole of bo gladne3 glade;
Forby I {303t {)at Paradyse.
\Vat3 fier ouer gayn bo bonke3 brade. (lines 133-8)

He has not yet reached the point, in the first sections of the dream, at which the
vision of beauty will permit him a moment of truth.
His initial reaction does, however, prepare him for the sight of the Pearlmaiden. At first, he maintains a kind of esthetic distance from the object of his
love and sorrow. She, too, is adorned, lpy3t' in pearls, her mortal beauty made
immortal. Dazzled by her beauty, the dreamer does not think of her as his own:
More meruayle con my dorn adaunt;
I se3 by3onde bat myry mere
A crystal clyffe ful relusaunt;
Mony ryal ray con fro hit rere.
At be fote berof ber sete a faunt,
A mayden of menske, ful debonere;
Blysnande whyt \vat3 hyr bleaunt,
I knew hyr wel, I hade sen hyr ere.
As glysnande golde bat man con schere,
So schon bat schene an-vnder shore, (lines 157-66)

The dreamer's initial response is wonder. A non-aesthetic reaction commences

when he recognizes her as his daughter:
perle', quod 1, 'in Perle3 py3t.
Art bou my perle bat I haf playned,
Regretted by myn one on ny3te?' (lines 241-3)

It is then that he errs in wanting to possess her:

trawed my perle don out of dawe3.
Now haf I fonde hyt, I schal ma feste,
And wony wyth hyt in schyr wod-schawe3', (lines 282-4)

Throughout the central portion of the work, our dreamer is inaccessible to logic
and sound theology. He hopes to rejoin the Maiden, as seen above. He doesn't
quite understand how the Maiden and Mary can both be queens in Heaven
(lines 421-32), and is as much impressed by her place in what he takes to be the
heavenly hierarchy after her explanation as before (lines 481-92). He cannot
comprehend the nature of God's justice in the parable of the vineyard, and
thinks the Maiden's rendition 'vnresounable' (line 590). He asks her, since she is
so fine and mighty, whether she has 'no wone3 in castel-walle, / Ne maner ber
3e may mete and won' (lines 917-18). In other words, he is a dunce at metaphysics, and much of the poem's charm involves our sympathizing with this all407

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too-human failing. He does, however, beg the Maiden for a sight of her 'blysful
bor' (line 964), and it is in the form of a vision that he experiences a momentary
revelation of truth.
The Heavenly City as revealed to the dreamer consists entirely of gems and
precious metals. The space is thus precious and rarified, but still material. While
the catalogue of stones in Section XII is not terribly original and has been taken
as a tour-de-force and not much more, the Pearl-poet was neither the first nor
the last writer to rejoice in catalogues, and this is a particularly apt catalogue
for the work.12 It is a Heaven of pure color, crafted; the exact description of
stones reminds us that new techniques of cutting gems replaced goldwork and
enamel as hallmarks of the jeweler's art at about the time that Pearl was written.13 From the jasper which 'gentle grene in be lowest hemme' (line 1001) to
the 'amatyst purpre wyth ynde blente' (line 1016), the dreamer has endowed
Heaven with the stuff of earth, but with the purest and best that earth has to
offer. What ensues from this artist's vision is a momentary awareness of a
power above and beyond the material, of a light 'bry3ter ben bobe be sunne and
mone' (line 1056).
This light, just as it has no natural source, has no limit. What has a limit is the
dreamer's capacity for transcendence:
An-vnder mone so great merwayle
No fleschly hert ne my3t endeure,
As quen I blusched vpon bat bayle,
So ferly berof wat3 be fasure. (lines 1081-4)

The 'delyt' which the dreamer experiences when 'rauyste wyth glymme pure'
(line 1088) must, since he is but a mortal creature, drive him to incorrect actions
or desires:
Delyt me drof in y3e and ere,
My mane3 mynde to maddyng malte;
Quen I se3 my frely, I wolde be bere,
By3onde be water ba3 ho were walte, (line 1153-6)

At the point where he wishes to 'swymme be remnaunt' (line 1160), he wakes, of

course, once more in a painful state of longing. He grieves not only for loss of
the Maiden, but of 'bat fayre regioun' (line 1178) with 'alle bo sy3te3 so quyke
and queme' (line 1179), in short, for his lost moment of disembodiment and
peace.
His longing, however, is of a different kind after the vision. The narrator, if
not happy or content, seems more able to accept the conditions of our existence:
12

13

Catalogues are to be found everywhere from Chaucer to Whitman, of course. Of particular

interest is Chaucer's catalogue of trees in The Book of the Duchess, another poem about
bereavement and consolation.
Evans, p. 53.

408

To pat Prynce3 paye hade I ay bente,

And 3erned no more pen wat3 me gyuen,
And halden me per in trwe entent, (lines 1189-91)

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Yet his entire acceptance seems to hinge upon a conditional:

perle', quod I, 'of rych renoun,
So wat3 hit me dere pat pou con deme
In pis veray avysyoun!
If hit be ueray and soth sermoun
pat pou so styke3 in garlande gay,
So wel is me in pys doel-doungoun' (lines 1182-7)

The narrator has no way of verifying the truth of the vision. But whether or not
it has been the truth, the vision itself has been a 'meruayle', granted, as the
Maiden informs the dreamer (lines 967-8) 'of be Lombe' and 'bur gret fauor'.
The ordered beauty of that Heaven which the dreamer beholds is the human
aspect of the divine. Though not absolute perfection which is not of the
senses such a vision is not to be scorned. It leads the dreamer, briefly, to rise
above the phenomenal, and to overcome his despair.
Perhaps the Pearl-poet would have agreed with Santayana:
The greater hold which material beauty has upon the senses, stimulates us here, where the form is
also sublime, and lifts and intensifies our emotions. We need this stimulus if our perceptions are to
reach the highest pitch of strength and acuteness. u

The dreamer has been 'rauyste' by the material beauty of the vision. His soul is
made receptive to grace in the contemplation or through the revelation of the
beautiful. In the last stanza of the poem, there is a reference to the daily miracle
of the priest transforming 'bred and wyn'. In the dream-vision, the physical
world has been presented as transformed by the Deity, and human souls 'adorned' in a way analogous to the 'dbbement' of the dream. That nature which
so irked and threatened the narrator is transmuted into a kingdom of the
beautiful. Whereas E. Talbot Donaldson has noted, and rightly, that the
dreamer's question as to what kind of 'oystriys' have brought forth such a pearl
(line 755) indicates the ambiguity of the persona towards the natural world, and
is also perhaps a kind of 'joke for the poet ... on the limitations of artifice as
well',15 the vision of phenomenal beauty brings the dreamer as close to transcendence as a human being can come. This beauty is the manifestation of the
grace of God, and is the medium, in Pearl, through which man may become
reconciled to his 'doel-doungoun', that is, to his fate in this world.
New Jersey Institute of Technology

14
15

NIKKI STILLER

The Sense of Beauty, p. 78.

Oysters, Forsooth: Two Readings in Pearl', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, LXXXIII (1972),
75-82; the quote is found on p. 79.

409