Dante Alighieri has influenced countless authors since the initial distribution of his Commedia over 700 years ago. Shadows of his works can be seen in authors from
Chaucer to Salman Rushdie. Perhaps the most striking, yet unproven, influence can be seen in the medieval poem Pearl. Pearl and Purgatorio Cantos 28-32 are nearly identical in every way: form, function, plot, and characters. All of these parallels present together signal that a sheer coincidence is unlikely. In addition, Pearl mimics the
Empyrean section of Paradiso in a few significant ways. The problem, though, is there is no concrete evidence that the Pearl Poet had access to Dante’s works. The Pearl Poet wrote Pearl in the late 1300’s, so direct borrowing from Dante’s Commedia is temporally possible. That’s all that one can be absolutely sure of. While there is no definitive answer, I believe the textual evidence speaks for itself.
Dante is a figure so prolific that he needs no introduction. Pearl, and the author behind it, are another story and are relatively unknown. Hence, I will begin with some contextual information about this fairly obscure 14th century piece. The Pearl Poet is the attributed author to four different poems: Cleanness, Patience, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. Some scholars suggest that he also wrote St. Erkenwald, but that is heavily disputed. Nothing is known about the author, not even a name. Partly, this is due to the fact that his works were “lost” until the 1800’s. To this day, they only exist in a single manuscript, the Cotton MS Nero A.x., which was in a private collection for a couple hundred years. When it resurfaced in the late 1800’s, this manuscript was noted for its poetic prowess and entered academic circulation. The man behind this, though, is entirely unknown – there isn’t even a widely accepted speculation. Hence, this is the reason for the denotation of this author as the Pearl Poet, who is also known as the
Gawain Poet. For the sake of simplicity, the Pearl Poet will be referred to using the
1 masculine pronoun. There is a minute possibility that the author was a woman, but it is highly unlikely. Women were largely considered to have no need to read and write, and hence not many of them could.
There were a small number of noted female medieval writers, but they were by- and-large not professional writers. Most notably, women would write down their stories of religious visions and lives, as with Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. They wrote to share their stories and lessons, not as a celebration of the art of writing. Accordingly, their works are standard and while interesting, nothing is extraordinary about their writing (besides the fact that they were women writing.) Given the extreme talent of the
Pearl Poet, it would be fair to say that he was the closest thing to a professional writer that existed at that time. He likely had another job, but the love and energy that goes into his poetry is evident. While his works are largely didactic, his craft keeps these poems from shifting into mediocrity. Pearl transcends the boundaries of categorization, as it is not only an elegy or an allegory, but also a creation of love for the English language in a time when this was rare.
In addition to excelling in his art, the Pearl Poet is also thoroughly literate in
Christian theology. An intimate acquaintance with ecclesiastical literature weaves its way through Pearl. While Pearl, to some extent, relies on rote Bible verses, it is also accompanied by a thorough layman’s explanation. In this context, the Pearl Poet is acting the part of a religious leader. Pearl can serve as an incredibly well developed sermon – any Christian can see the congruencies. The priest reads a few Bible verses, and then explains to his audience – not just the basic meaning of the verse, but also how to incorporate that into daily life. To today’s audience, Pearl would be an incredibly long sermon, but it was par for the course in the late 1300’s. After all, people were expected
2 to spend the majority of their Sabbath in church. This poem is also well suited to being read aloud, with the strong alliteration and circular patterning of an artful reasoning.
The lines simply roll off the tongue, while the meter and rhythm entice listeners into a lull.
This is something that the Commedia cannot boast of. For all its beauty and splendor, the Commedia is meant for introspection. While it is exquisite spoken aloud, it can only be taken in at intervals due to its immense length. Even then, Dante requires a thorough re-reading and reflection period for the reader to uncover all of the hidden meanings. It’s simply not possible to hear it once and know the intentions behind every single word.
To this end, I would argue that the Pearl Poet was a member of the clergy. Even if
Pearl was not meant for use as a sermon, there are simply too many religious markings to ignore. There was a monastery not too far from where the manuscript originated, which leads to the possibility that the author was a monk there. Besides, the majority of literate people during that time were associated with the church, whether directly or indirectly. Put in the context of the other three poems found in the MS Cotton Nero A.x., they form a series of sermons. The one particular outlier is Sir Gawain and The Green
Knight, which still imparts a message of morality, but lacks the religious air of the other three. It still, though, is of a complementary stylistic nature to the other poems in the manuscript. Patience and Cleanness/Purity are just as rigorous as Pearl in imparting specific religious messages. Patience uses a biblical tale of Jonah to underscore its titular virtue. Cleanness/Purity, emphasizes the importance of being pure – in some respects, it can be seen as a denouncement of homosexuality (Steinberg 150). The first three form a trio of lectures that each imparts a specific virtue on the audience. If these
3 poems weren’t used as a series of sermons, they definitely could have. Anyone who has ever been to a Roman Catholic mass can appreciate how sermons are broken down into specific messages, with a different one being expounded each day.
The problem in comparing these two poets is that we know way too much about
Dante, and way too little about the Pearl Poet. Dante’s ego abounds in all of his works, and it is impossible to separate Dante the person from Dante the author. The Commedia is, in particular, “a work of supreme egotism” (Steinburg 126). It is impossible to read without thorough notes that explain certain political intrigues and events. To understand the Commedia, one must first understand Dante and his world. The Pearl
Poet is an unknown that doesn’t force his presence on his audience. Similarly, he didn’t feel the need to put his name, or really any name at all, on these poems. The names we associate with these poems – Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness – have been imposed on them anachronistically. Clearly, the poet did not intend for his works to have the same reach as Dante’s or Chaucer’s. Given that it they only exist in one manuscript, it’s highly likely that it was never largely circulated.
This is more congruent with his contemporaries – very few poets announced their prowess as Dante did. Dante, while deeply religious, uses the Commedia as a theological thought-experiment, not as a how-to guide to salvation. It is deeply personalized, being a story of how one particular person – Dante himself– was able to reconcile his life with his religion. This narrator is obviously meant to represent Dante, and details pointing to his identity are numerous. The Pearl narrator is exactly the opposite – he could be anyone. There are no clues to his occupation, social status, or regional affiliation. He is an everyman, a trope that resounds in medieval literature. One
4 needs only to look to the horde of medieval dramas that had a protagonist named
“everyman” – didacticism didn’t get much more creative than that.
A mark of an excellent artist is being able to take a standard piece of his craft and turn it into something completely different. Pearl is a dream vision in a time period flooded with them – it seems almost every narrator had a severe case of narcolepsy. To a reader of the medieval era, it might seem like Pearl was just another vision; yet, it is so much more than that. Dante also took poetry to an entirely new level with his
Commedia. Pearl is a creative endeavor with an always-present theological background.
Gerould posits that not only was the Pearl Poet familiar with Dante’s Commedia, but also with his Convivio (17). Authorial intent is the driving force behind these two poems.
For Dante, he wished to glorify Beatrice the way no woman had ever been glorified. The focus is on the relationship between her and Dante. Pearl is meant for general consumption and utilization, as the focus isn’t on the narrator or Pearl, but on the message that the story imparts. The reasoning behind writing these poems may be different, but the end results are the same: divine reasoning for a loss that is almost too great for words.
Pearl and the Commedia are based on different levels of theological knowledge.
Pearl, being much shorter, devotes itself only to short lessons and parables. Much of what Pearl says comes directly from the Bible, with some creative flourishing in the setting and plot. The Commedia is much more complex. The theological ideas explored by Dante hail back to the ancestors of the Catholic Church – St. Augustine and St.
Thomas Aquinas. The assertion by Dante’s commentaries that he was unable to fully converse with laypeople is a testament to his theological prowess (Lopez 37.) Pearl is focused on the literal aspects of the Bible, whereas the Commedia is a more scholarly
5 approach. By the time Dante reaches Paradiso, almost all of his concepts have deep theological undertones. Without a moderate level of training, it would be impossible to grasp all of what is being said. Pearl would have been more suitable for everyday audiences, as the most hidden message is in the parable. There are no abstract allusions or bizarre creatures. Both poems, though, still share the message of God’s grace and redemption.
Proving the influence of Dante on the Pearl Poet is impossible to difficult.
However, there is overwhelming evidence that some of the Pearl Poet’s contemporaries were familiar with Dante’s works. Chaucer is perhaps the most popular, as he traveled to
Italy and was extensively familiar with Italian literature. There are several allusions to
Dante in Chaucer’s poems, most notably in The House of Fame. He took a passage from the Commedia involving a golden eagle, and mirrored it into a comedic interlude. It is also possible that other English authors could have had access to the Commedia without traveling to Italy. It spread across Europe very quickly after its first distribution (Cachey and Jordan 78). This would be largely due to the movement of both merchants and missionaries between the epicenter of the Roman Catholic Church to the then-Catholic
England. Dante became a famous writer not just among Italians, but also among other nationalities.
Of course, this statement refers to Dante in the original Italian, as English translations did not appear until some time later. Hence, it was really only the nobility who could read his works, for they would need to know either Italian or Latin. The latter is more likely, given that it was the language of the nobility and education. The majority of the literature of the time was in Latin, so to be literate was to be able to read that language, as well as English. Latin was inescapable among the upper classes, and it
6 shares much of its vocabulary with Italian (B. Grimes, Pittman, and J. Grimes 78). So while it is a stretch to say that the Commedia would be readable by a majority of the
Latin-reading population, there is evidence that some would be able to comprehend it.
As far as the unusual choice of language for his poem goes, the Pearl Poet was essentially England’s version of Dante Alighieri. He crafted the vernacular in such a way that it managed to exceed the elegance of Latin. The specific dialect of Pearl, though, can make it difficult to the modern reader. The vernacular of the West Midlands region is one that underwent changes much later than the other dialects, due to its use in rural areas. Accordingly, Anglo-Saxon letters such as thorn and yogh are heavily used. Eth, in particular, did not commonly appear in literature after 1300, yet makes an appearance in the Pearl Poet’s work. All authors tried to antiquate his or her language to some extent in the Middle Ages. However, Pearl appears to be much more archaic in structure than any of its contemporaries. Love, a fairly basic word, is spelled as “luf” by the Pearl
Poet, in comparison to Chaucer’s and Langland’s more contemporary “love.”
The question, though, is whether or not this creative usage of the vernacular was intentional. Some scholars believe that the Pearl Poet was intentionally trying to evoke the spirit of Dante as portrayed in his De Vulgari Eloquentia. Dante specifically used his own vernacular, Tuscan, as he believed it was the best of all the related Italian dialects.
However, in the case of the Pearl Poet, the usage of a Midlands dialect might simply indicate that the author was from a rural area. In that case, it would be unlikely that there was any conscious linguistic choice on his part. If the Midlands dialect was the only choice for the Pearl Poet, then it follows that he was likely rural and uneducated.
While it is technically possible that someone with no formal education or access to literature could write a poem of this scope, it is not very likely. If nothing else, Pearl
7 points to a vast knowledge of the Bible, a book that was then only in Latin (English translations came later when England transitioned to Protestantism.) In order to gain a reading comprehension of Latin at that time, specialized training was needed. It need not be extensive, but access to other reading materials and training was imperative.
The Pearl Poet’s usage of alliterative verse is also an argument for a Dantean influence. Alliterative verse, which was once the standard for English poetics, had fallen out of style by the late 1300’s. Anyone utilizing this verse would be considered “rural,” or unfamiliar with what was then considered the height of fashionable writing. Chaucer, the ever-present contemporary, was a poet who would have been intimately familiar with this older style of traditional English prose. However, through his thoroughly continental travel and education, he gravitated toward a style that evokes European
Renaissance writers. To him, the form utilized by Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch would have been vastly more advanced than the alliterative verse. Its usage by the Pearl Poet, someone who was clearly very educated, is a chronological anomaly, much like his orthography. I would argue then that Pearl is a love letter devoted not just to the
English language, but also to the older English poetry that it evokes.
The Pearl Poet follows Dante’s example in using a rhyme scheme that suits the vernacular. Dante invented “terza rima” for the Commedia, as he believed that it uniquely suited his Tuscan Italian. “Terza rima” is an interlocking verse scheme that rhymes ABA BCB CDC DED. It seems that it was a success, as this rhyme scheme, combined with Dante’s Tuscan dialect, formed one of the most beautiful poems of the
14th century. While the Pearl Poet did not invent a new rhyme scheme per se, he still adapted a traditional English scheme to his relatively rustic Middle English. In many ways, the stanza form is similar to those used in the romance languages, but slightly
8 adapted due to the vast difference in rhyming capabilities. Pearl is composed of 101 stanzas of 12 lines each with the rhyme scheme ABABABABBCBC. The stanzas are linked in fives by word repetition in all last and some select first lines. Accordingly, the link word is changed twenty times. The rhymes are not complex, but they suit the purpose of the poem. It is meant to be a simple story with a repetitive message of morality. Dante, on the other hand, transcends the boundaries of Italian poetry. He meant for it to evoke something otherworldly – something that no one had seen before.
The unity of verse and purpose reveals not only information about the authors, but the intent lurking behind every word.
Pearl is also notable in form in that it resembles its eponymous precious stone. It is a circular poem that begins and ends almost synonymous verses. It begins “Perle plesaunte to prynces paye” and ends with “Ande precious perleȝ vnto his pay. Amen.
Amen.” In addition to this overarching circle, Pearl also forms smaller circles throughout the stanzas. Every single stanza is in its proper place, linked to the ones before it and after it. Pearl can almost be thought of like a necklace – it is circular in overall form, but made up of smaller circles in between. While there are asymmetrical numbers of syllables, this does not damage the beauty or the unity of the poem. The imagery is largely synonymous with pearls, with a heavy emphasis on light and purity.
The most-used adjectives are “white,” “bright,” and “pure.”
Purgatorio displays a similar unity of form. It is an ascent – a continuous climb to the next stage of glory. While the imagery becomes more and more heavenly and opalescent, the rhyme and meter remain the same. It is a steady, continuous pace towards the light. Dante never falters in rhyme or meter; it is the same from beginning to end. As Newman points out, Dante’s progression of rhymes sustain the forward
9 motion of the narrative, even as the tercets circle around each other like celestial spheres. This brings back to mind the structured pearl of Pearl – beautiful circles intertwining and complementing each other as they move towards a summit. This similarity is more than just a knee-jerk reaction to the subject – the reader can feel it in every verse upon verse as they revolve around each other.
Perhaps some of the most concrete evidence for a Dante-influenced Pearl Poet is the incredibly similar numerological system. Numbers are loaded symbols in most medieval works, Pearl and the Commedia included. In fact, it is impossible to understand the concept of medieval beauty without thinking of numbers. The inclusion of numerology is not what is important, but instead what is attached to these numbers and what they signify. What is particularly odd is that both of these poems have exactly one problem in their numerological scheme. The Commedia is comprised of 100 cantos,
33 in each section (excluding Inferno, which has 34.) It seems evident that the Pearl
Poet attempted to make an even number of sections, but one extra section foiled this perfection. Perhaps this error is not just an authorial or scribal, as it could also represent the lost divinity of the narrator. He reached towards perfection, but failed in his very humanity. This is in direct contrast to Dante, who was able to overcome his errors to transcend divinely. While arguing influence on this concept alone is pure speculation, it is another striking utilization of poetic unity as proposed by both Dante and the Pearl
Poet.
These authors did not rely on the same set of three numbers for their numerology, but instead drew on what was most important to their poems and their messages. Chapman notes that the Commedia is based on the numbers three, nine, and ten, while Pearl draws on three, four, and twelve. The numbers three and ten are very
10 common allegorically, being respectively the trinity and the number of completion. Less common are the numbers nine, four, and twelve. However, Dante felt a special connection with the first of those numbers, as he associated his Beatrice with the number nine. This partly comes from the fact that she was nine years old when he first met her. This adoption of the number nine in the Commedia is prolific, but it is seen most prominently in the number of circles in each afterlife.
Linking together medieval writings by the number three is ridiculously easy.
Three is, and has always been, a theologically loaded number. There are three parts in
God, three divisions of the afterlife, and so on and so forth. Even today, three is a recognizable trope to even the casual reader. If the only significant number was three, the assumption would be that the poets simply drew on the same collective Biblical knowledge. Three is the trinity, and 33 was the age at which Christ died. To further add to the confusion, three squared is nine – or the number representing Beatrice. As Dante meets his three beasts, has three guides, mounts three steps to the gate of Purgatory, and sees the three theological virtues on the right side and the four moral virtues on the left, so our poet is guilty of three errors, asks four questions, addresses four terms of adoration to the Virgin, and likens Christ three times to a Lamb. The fair country where he falls asleep has flowers of three colors; and on the hill where his Pearl slipped away grow four flowers: gillyflower, ginger, gromwell, and peony. The usage of numerology in any medieval work in any medieval work could fill a whole volume; hence these are only examples of the complexity, not to be mistaken for a full and complete list.
Three, four, and twelve are crucial to Pearl, as they are the numbers on which the fabled New Jerusalem is built. It is set on twelve foundations, four walls that are twelve furlongs each, and twelve gates with three set in each wall. While biblically relevant,
11 these numbers also form the foundation and structure of the poem. Each stanza contains twelve lines and three rhymes, while each line contains exactly four stresses.
The total number of stanzas is 1212. Christ has an assembly of 144,000 virgins – which is divisible by all three numbers. It is in this section, 15, that the poet has inserted an extra stanza, increasing the number of stanzas from the original 1200. With this knowledge, one can see how the poet formed the number 144,000. 1212 could be written as 12x12, which is, of course 144. A square number is also very important to Dante – his
Beatrice is the square of the trinity, or nine. It is feasible that the Pearl Poet noted the ingenuity of Dante’s numerology, and then paid homage to it in a way that better represented his own poem and what was important to him.
The tripartite division is perhaps the most recognizable thing about both poems.
The Commedia, most famously, consists of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. All of these are comprised of 33 cantos, with the exception of Inferno, which has 34. This extra canto is frequently referred to as an introduction. Pearl begins with the dreamer on an earthly plane, grieving over his lost pearl. The first division occurs when he enters his vision, and the second when the discussion shifts to that of New Jerusalem. After the dreamer returns to Earth, he gives a two-stanza speech that serves as an epilogue of sorts. Ginsberg argues that the division of Pearl into three distinct chapters is rather arbitrary. Unlike Dante, the Pearl Poet (at least in the only copy that still exists) did not overtly express this division. The Pearl Poet does seem to defy division structurally – nothing is quite as clean-cut as it appears. However, the shifts in mood and dialectic point to a division in spirit, even though it is not physically divided.
Not only is the form that Purgatorio and Pearl take eerily similar, their functions are identical. They are simultaneously elegies and allegories for a long-lost woman. As
12 an elegy, the authors glorify a woman whom they lost. For Dante, it is his Beatrice, whom he had loved since boyhood. The Pearl Poet is mourning over a different kind of lost love – a child. It has been speculated that the author lost a daughter, named
Margery, and that this is his way of dealing with the grief (Stanbury 115). Hence, these poems serve as theological lessons not only to the dream-poet and the audience, but also to the real poet. Dante, after all, wrote the Commedia in repentance of his former ways.
Pearl likewise carries a message for its author – that one must not doubt God’s plans.
In this respect, Pearl echoes Chaucer’s The Book of The Duchesse.
While a majority of critics agree that Pearl was written for the Poet’s daughter, there are detractors from that argument. Mother Angela Carson, for instance, posits that
Pearl is a grown woman whom the narrator relates to romantically, not paternally. The bulk of her argument (in fact, the bulk of everyone’s argument, regardless of the conclusion reached) comes from one single line: “She was not on this land two years when she was taken from us.” The interpretation that Carson favors is that Pearl was an immigrant woman that was converted shortly after reaching England. This is possible, especially in light of the passion with which Pearl speaks. Her rhetoric runs closer to the scorned lover, Beatrice, than to a spiritually absent father.
Another testament to this argument is the undeniable sexual tension between the dreamer and Pearl (Shoaf 153). An underlying eroticism runs through her, as well as
Beatrice, like an electrical current. They are magnetizing, captivating, and utterly desirable. All these two men want are to completely and utterly possess these divine women. Dante realized this desire in life, but failed to be worthy enough for her. The
Pearl narrator speaks of a “luf-longyng” that compels him to want to not just be with her, but to also be a part of her in all of her glory. If Pearl was the poet’s daughter, then
13 this eroticism is both bizarre and displaced. In this case, I would argue that this error serves an authorial purpose, rather than a display of incestual pedophilia. As the dreamer’s fallen state affects the form and the atmosphere of the poem, so does it affect his emotions. He is clearly confused, and is unable to sort out how exactly he longs for
Pearl. Being a human male, the default state would be sexual – just another testament to how he is not yet ready to cross the stream. Dante, whose emotions are more in line with his spirituality than his sexuality, is able to make the distinction. Not to say that he doesn’t lust for Beatrice, as he most certainly does – he can just properly judge his emotions for what they are.
Going back to the argument of Pearl’s relationship with the narrator, I believe there is simply not enough context to make a definitive decision. I tend to favor the thought that Pearl is indeed the poet’s daughter. The way he describes her is childlike, and he states that she didn’t even know her Pater Noster when she died. A grown woman, even one recently converted to the church, would know this. At the very least, she would recognize it, even if she could not memorize it by heart. A child on the other hand, would hear these prayers every day, but would not even comprehend their meaning for a few years. While agreeing with Carson that Pearl is a romantic figure would make this comparison with Dante a lot easier, it just doesn’t seem the most likely answer. A good deal of Carson’s further argument is more of a theological study of the parables described in Pearl, not of the text itself. Hence, it seems logical to conclude with the legion of scholars that believe that Pearl is indeed the lost daughter of the dreamer/author.
It doesn’t do either the Commedia or Pearl justice, though, to simply categorize them as elegies. As earlier stated, these two poems defy and transcend the usual genres.
14 Pearl and the Commedia do, though, contain a number of allegorical conventions through which they can be further analyzed. The surreal dream setting is the first clue, followed by the otherworldly female figures. Pearl and Purgatorio become more and more bizarre as the narrative continues, and climaxes with a shift in scenery. According
St. Augustine’s rule of charity, if a text does not make sense on the surface, then it should be viewed as an allegory. These two poems, while making some sense on the surface, need to be analyzed allegorically to obtain the complete message. This is particularly true for the procession scenes of Pearl and Purgatorio cantos 28-31, which are allegorically loaded in so many different ways. The odd fact is that no matter how complex Dante becomes throughout the procession of Beatrice, Pearl is an echo of his images and characters.
Pearl presents itself as a dream vision, which was a common framing for medieval allegory. A quick glance at dream visions in the Middle Ages brings up such great allegories as William Langland’s Piers Plowman, Chaucer’s The Book of The
Duchesse, among many others. Allegories of these sorts were much more popular in the
14th century than they are today. Dream visions, in particular, were favored since they had the claims of divine inspiration and authenticity. This is important to both the
Commedia and Pearl, as their theological messages would be heretical without a perceived divine intervention. Still, the line between the sacred and sacrilege was an easy one to cross, and many contemporaries viewed religious visions with skepticism, if not outright umbrage.
Dream visions are separated historically from “true” visions, in that the authors know that the circumstances surrounding their visions are false (Gardiner XV). Dante certainly admitted that the Commedia was largely a work of imagination. While it is
15 impossible to know what the Pearl Poet believed, the contexts of his writings show that he was divinely inspired, not that he had a real vision. Another common circumstance that separates Pearl from the “true” visionaries is that real visions were relayed by those who had no aspirations to be professional writers. They typically were normal people – usually very religious – but not extensively linguistically trained. “True” visions betray their authors in that their wording is basic, and their grammar occasionally awkward.
The emphasis is not on the words themselves, but on the message behind the words.
While a theological emphasis is on the message of Pearl, the Pearl Poet was obviously trained as a writer. In particular, the fact that he wrote two other poems with similar didactic messages points to a fictitious framing of Pearl.
“Christian fiction” is a term utilized now to describe both Pearl and the
Commedia. It is not the assertion that religion is fiction, but rather the acknowledgement that religious writers take creative licenses (Manlove 1). In several critical surveys of medieval texts, Pearl and Dante are listed right next to each other.
Chronologically this makes sense, as they are the closest major works of Christian fiction. These poems have very little time between them, but more importantly, very little difference in ideology and method of execution. Speaking of Pearl and the
Commedia in the same breath is to be able to elaborate on the themes that intertwine and wind through these poems. Culturally, the end of the Medieval era/beginning of the
Renaissance was some of the most fruitful for the religious imagination. Artistic representations of the afterlife and the nature of God began to be encouraged, not denounced as heresy. In fact, Dante was one of the first ones to comment on the possible nature of Purgatory, given that Pope Innocent IV had only approved of its existence in
1254 (Lopez 38).
16 While Dante claimed that his Commedia was not a dream vision, it still exhibits the major conventions of one. As far as a definition goes, a dream vision is a (usually) bizarre journey conducted with the narrator and a guide. The guide can be either a character or the author, and is the translator of all the fabulous things that are seen and spoken. This journey imparts knowledge to the narrator, who goes back to the waking world and writes of it. This conventional frame clearly fits Dante’s Commedia, although it has never gone as far as to be primarily defined as one. Despite all of Dante’s protests, though, he does realize that it is all a construct. Perhaps the most important denotation of this appears in canto 28, as Matelda is speaking of the structure of the afterlife.
Statius and Virgil smile at Matelda’s “construct,” because they realize that it is all a construct. It is simply a means through which the author can deliver his message.
The artificiality of the afterlife is a well-documented phenomenon. Instead of attempting to hide their art, these poets bring it to light. Dante’s narrative is a construct through which he can philosophize and reflect. The construct of the Pearl Poet, though, is more educational. The problem of the afterlife, which is discussed in Newman’s “The
Artifice of Eternity: Speaking of Heaven in Three Medieval Poems”, stems from a basic lack in the human imagination. Since we have never known perfect happiness, we cannot fully grasp the concept of heaven. This is as true for the poet as it is for the audience. Reason follows that even if Dante or the Pearl Poet saw heaven, the construct of human words would fail just like their minds. The authors have to bridge the daunting gap between God, the author, and the audience. There must be a common, accepted language through which the afterlife can be commented on. This language, though, is not the language of God, but the language of the fallen people. Dante and the
Pearl Poet realize this problem, and adjust/admit to it accordingly.
17 The significant difference between the Eden of Purgatorio and the Empyrean is due to the change in the narrator. The narrator of Pearl is not cleansed in the river, so it can be inferred that he cannot see the true splendor of the New Jerusalem. He sees many amazing things, but not what Dante can. The picture painted in Pearl of New
Jerusalem is very basic. It seems as though the limitations of the narrator then limits a heavenly city to appearing as a rough sketch of what could be. Dante, however, thrives on the flourishes of divine inspiration. You can feel the ecstasy and awe in his poetry.
Dante is a master of emotionality, and that reaches its fever pitch in Paradiso. The passion conveyed by Dante is ever fluctuating, which casts the Pearl narrator in a rather uninspired light. At times, he seems more confused and irritable than anything else. In others, he simply appears to lack any semblance of intelligence. Dante only receives the ability to see in the very last cantos of Paradiso, and before that is blinded by the light.
The Pearl narrator likely suffers from the same impairment of vision.
Dante repeats multiple times that due to the magnificence of the realms, he cannot adequately relate what he saw. Thus, he has to create much of the structure of his narrative in order to have it make sense. Dante needs to be sure that his readers will understand his message, and this is the only way he knows how. The Pearl Poet admits the same problem of indescribability in Pearl. Both poets understand the constraints of putting these narratives into words, but still are able to vouch for their authenticity.
Indeed, it can be argued that ineffability vouches for the authenticity of the experience, rather than against the linguistic skill of the poet. These are both poems that are taking things for which there are no words and trying to turn them into narratives. This is one of the definitions of allegory.
18 Ineffability is incredibly common in medieval literature, when it comes to describing the divine. It is a way of paying respect to something beyond the realm of humans. Newman states “Speaking of heaven is really speaking about God insofar as human beings can experience him, and thus presses against the limits of speech and thought (38).” The more the poets struggle with pinning down the heavenly, the less receptive they are to the messages being conveyed. When Dante basks in divine glory, he accepts the seeming incongruity that is presents to his audience. The Pearl Poet never accepts his fate or the realities of what he is seeing, and thus is rejected from the garden.
His verse is violent during his transitions between the existential planes.
It is indisputable that the dream settings of Pearl and Purgatorio cantos 28-32 are identical. It is Eden as it was before the fall of man, and as it will be again after the judgment. While Eden is a key location in Christian thought, there is very little description devoted to it in the Bible. Thus, the authors crafted these settings mostly through creative means and came up with essentially the same place. Their Edens are eternal spring – a renewal of mankind. Fertility abounds, from the flowers to the trees.
It is a place of perfection, light, and beauty. There is nothing out of its proper place. It is harmony between the Earth and God’s intent. The narrator describes his pearl as being a bridge between hope and life. Eden is the physical incarnation of that bridge. On one side are divine promise and his pearl, and on the other side is the mortal realm.
There is much more to Eden, though, than meets the eye. While modern readers readily accept the elaborate descriptors as simply artistic, they are not so frivolous to the medieval mind. Most modern writers utilize physical descriptors as merely artistic flourishes. A physical setting is something to move the plot along, and to draw attention to certain intangible points. Sholty states, “In a culture in which the state of the soul was
19 of paramount importance, the meticulous representation of physical details was beside the point, a distraction.” The medieval mind was drawn to spiritual and emotional realities, not physical ones. Hence, the physicality of Eden is not really that of Eden, but that of a pure and cleansed soul.
Sholty further states, “The artist or writer…most frequently pictured interior experience in terms of space, and transition between one state or another as passage within or between spaces.” Dante and the Pearl narrator find themselves in a crisis in the wilderness. They are transported to a place where they may learn how to enrich themselves spiritually, before they ultimately view heaven. The setting, accordingly, is the most spectacularly denoted when the narrator reconnects with his lost female guide.
The settings of dream visions are based on internalized emotions that have no other medium through which to express themselves. It is easy enough to follow the author’s major points in plot and character – but the details are just as important. The overall aura of the foci denotes the author’s emotional state, and it can be used to track key points in the narrator’s story. The particular feel of a locale ensures that even the most casual of readers is drawn into the psyche of the author. These dream visions, in a strict sense, are dreams – largely assumed to tap into psychic undercurrents. While the women are indeed representative of their true natures, so the original setting of the narrators are reminiscent of their internal states. Dante finds himself in a “selva oscura,” seemingly as mystical and terrifying as Hell. He has become lost in his own life, and can no longer see his ultimate goal. Likewise, the Pearl narrator is stuck in the past, and cannot move forward. He is on the grave of his beloved Pearl. Both of these settings are barren and ominous – nothing like the paradises that they are later transported to.
20 Ginsberg notes the long-standing relationship between place and dialectic.
Aristotle suggested the usage of topos as strategies for discovering arguments. The limitations of the human mind find their analogue in the lack of place in heaven. Note the phrase that begins and ends Pearl: “My precious pearl without a spot.” Typically, this refers to Pearl as being clean and pure. However, in the context of locality, it denotes the liminality of the space in which the vision occurs. He sees her neither in this life, or the next – but somewhere in between. “Without a spot” can also be seen as denoting her place in heaven, as she has no assigned spot. As Pearl argues to the narrator, everyone is equal in the afterlife. There are no distinctions or barriers to true existence. Dante experiences a similar confusion of place in Paradiso. He is baffled at the lack of ranking, which carries through to his inability to fully describe it. Even then, it is a daunting task for the audience to know exactly what he means. It is possible to logically accept, but near impossible to envision.
There are also some suspicious similarities between the setting of Pearl’s procession and the Empyrean of Paradiso. Gold is the main coloring of both, describing everything from the city to the lighting. New Jerusalem is the biblical precedent for both scenes, albeit with some notable creative flourishes. Pearl is basically a reimagining of the scene from the Bible, but with the added personification of Pearl. Dante takes a much more spectacular approach, expanding the scenery beyond anything that has ever been written. In the Book of Revelations, each gate is made up of a single pearl. In
Pearl, it is fittingly the character Pearl that allows the narrator to view New Jerusalem.
In Paradiso, it is Beatrice that serves this purpose. They are both given special providence to allow their loved ones to see heaven.
21 Pearl and Purgatorio cantos 28-32 both take place on the boundary of Earth and
Heaven, as represented as a river. Furthermore, the Empyrean is a further glorified
Eden, as it is marked as being a “golden river of life.” While the rivers of Purgatorio and
Pearl cannot compare, it is interesting that all of these distinguishing features are rivers.
The flowers here are not the flowers of the world, but instead a divine flower. The dignitaries make up the petals of a golden rose, which is their home in Paradise. No matter how beautiful the flowers that surround Dante and the Pearl narrator are in their respective Edens, the heavenly flower will always overshadow them.
Perhaps the most convincing evidence that the Pearl Poet was playing homage to
Dante is in the basics of the plot. While the plots are only the means to a theological end, the similarities are statistically compelling. The Pearl narrator and Dante make identical journeys through Eden. They come upon a river that they cannot cross, and are met by divine women. They are chided and learn about the divine plans of God. Once the narrators have properly renounced their sinful lives, they are allowed to see what awaits them in heaven. They are blinded by the light and love, and struggle to describe what they have seen. When they are back in the mortal realm, they write about their experiences to aid others. While it is possible that the exact overlapping of plot is sheer coincidence, it is unlikely. There is no Biblical or classical precedent for these riverside scenes that would have been known to both authors. So while culture could be to blame for numerical, theological, or intellectual ideas, it could not account for the identical narrative actions.
Pearl is what would result if the Commedia was shortened and condensed into one main message. As preposterous as it sounds, if we take only the last few cantos of
Purgatorio and compared them to Pearl, the resemblance is absolutely striking. Of
22 course, it is necessary to keep everything in context, but not every writer can have the stamina of Dante. Indeed, there wasn’t as prolific of a poet before his time, nor indeed since. If an English poet was hoping to pay homage to the Commedia, it would make the most sense to pick a short, but very relevant section. In conjunction with the speculation surrounding the poet’s life, it seems like this passage would have appeared very poignant to him. Instead of having the narrator travel through the depths of hell and purgatory, Pearl picks up at the very end of Purgatorio. However, instead of being able to travel into heaven, the narrator is only given a promise of what is to come. It is a short reminder of what there is to gain, instead of a full-blown adventure through the afterlife.
Rivers are the central geological features of both the Eden of Pearl and
Purgatorio. Their jewel-encrusted banks lead the narrators to their female guides. The river draws in both the audience and the narrator, and frames the narrative. Much of the scenery is described spatially in relation to the river. While the rivers are clear and pure, it is impossible to see the bottom of them. This is a symbol for the grace of God, as it appears simple, but it has no end. These rivers seem both natural and supernatural at the same time, and the narrators have an unspoken knowledge of this. Dante and the
Pearl narrator know they cannot cross the river, even before their guides inform them of that. Rivers have long been associated with the afterlife in classical mythology, particularly in the context of “crossing over.” However, this trope takes on a more nuanced meaning in Christianity in the context of baptism. Baptism, of course, is the first and perhaps most important of all Christian rites. Without this, a soul cannot have any hope of reaching heaven. To Dante, even the children who died unbaptised shortly after birth were relegated to Limbo, with all the moral heathens and unsaved children who died before.
23 Without being cleansed by the water, Dante cannot be fully restored into grace.
However, he requires the help of Matelda and Beatrice in order to cross the stream and be reborn. Beatrice is literally birthing Dante into a new state of grace. It’s as if his life is starting all over again, beginning with the anointing of holy waters. She is, as it were, the
Virgin Mary, birthing a pure soul. The maternal image of Beatrice is striking in all of its divine grace.
The grace of new life is denied the Pearl narrator, for it is not his time. His Pearl would have to make that decision, and she says it is not time. Like an expectant mother,
Pearl knows that there is still some time to go before this man is put into a new life. This is ironic in Pearl, since the narrator once was instrumental in the conception of her mortal life. Now, it is Pearl who is the parent. Beatrice is similarly maternal, as she is described as being like a mother who chastises her son. These women, who had no say in much during life, are now the ones making decisions. The entering of the rivers is what wakes the Pearl narrator up, and what allows Dante to move out of Eden.
According to both Dante and the Pearl Poet, being innocent is crucial to entering paradise. All of humanity is implicated through original sin, which is cleansed by a baptism after birth. These rivers, though, are for cleansing personal sin accumulated through life. Only by being baptized in death can a soul achieve the state of innocence required for salvation. In Purgatorio, the pilgrim loses all memory of his sins in the river Lethe. He has no knowledge of the evil he has perpetrated, much to Beatrice’s chagrin. This knowledge is what separates the saved from the fallen.
Likewise, Pearl explains to the narrator that one has to be childlike in order to reach heaven. The reason why she was able to attain God’s glory so soon after death is exactly because of her innocence. She makes it clear that some people may labor much
24 longer than she and have lifetimes to wait for his or her due. Everyone gets his or her share, as decided by God. The same is true in Purgatorio, in that God and the soul determine how much time each shade must spend in each level before they can move on.
Some take centuries on some levels, while others take mere years. In this time, the innocence of the souls is returned and they become children again. As the souls continue each step up the mountain, the comparisons to children become more and more frequent. On the terrace of the gluttonous, the second to last step, the shades are even described as crying out like children. Innocence is highly prized by God, which is why these trials must be put in place.
After walking for some time along the rivers, the narrators find their divine guides. While the concept of a heavenly aid is not rare, the interchangeability of Beatrice and Pearl is striking. One problem in comparing the Commedia to Pearl is that either
Beatrice or Matelda can be used for comparison to Pearl. Beatrice is the more common allegorical equal, due to her ethereal and divine nature. Matelda is not as important as a character, as she merely serves as a conduit to Beatrice. That does not mean, though, that her relevance to Pearl is not as great. Matelda serves as Pearl’s physical mirror, whereas Beatrice is Pearl’s divine mirror. Pearl is somewhere in between these two.
Physically, both Beatrice and Pearl are both difficult to look at due to the light of
God’s love. Perhaps the brightness is worsened by the fact that these women wear all white to denote their purity and virtue. Aside from the basic color of the dress, each woman has accents that denote their traits. Pearl, fittingly, is covered in pearls from head to toe. Her breast is adorned with the “pearl of great price” from the Parable of The
Pearl. She is the literal pearl of God, priceless and pure. In Purgatorio, Beatrice’s dress is accented with the color olive. This brings to mind both the olive branch of forgiveness,
25 as well as a natural fertility. She is also covered in a green mantle that burns like a flame.
This flame symbolizes the pure and powerful love that Beatrice possesses. These women wear garments that are physical incarnations of their moral attributes.
Pearl and Beatrice are also beings that are incapable of being separated from their namesakes. The naming of these main female figures exemplifies the common medieval allegorical trope of prosopopoeia. It is important to note that Beatrice and
Margery were their real names. However, the poem places a particular emphasis on the meaning behind these names. Margery was the name of the Pearl Poet’s daughter, which literally means “pearl”. She exemplifies her name, light and pure. In the Commedia,
Beatrice is the physical incarnation of beatific love. She is maternal, just, and forgiving.
It is thus appropriate that it is Beatrice who leads Dante forward into heaven, a journey also known as a beatific vision.
Pearl and Beatrice are strongly reminiscent of the Virgin Mary. These are women with power and influence due to God’s grace. They possess wisdom and beauty beyond the abilities of any mortals. Beatrice and Pearl have the power to both nurture and judge the unworthy narrators. They are likewise both very precious to God, and serve important roles in heaven. Pearl is one of 144,000 brides of Christ, while Beatrice has enough influence to save Dante. These women are the instruments through which the men can be born again. They are both maternal yet chiding figures, appearing as both guardians and teachers. Pearl and Beatrice comfort the men in their apprehensions, and discipline them for their misguided ways. In many ways, they serve as Biblical paragons of femininity. At the end of Paradiso, Dante actually sees the Virgin Mary. She appears very similar to Beatrice, because there is no differentiation in heaven. Pearl adamantly denies being on the same level of the Virgin Mary, but is still favorably compared to her.
26 Also of note is that in biblical lore, the Virgin Mary is the only woman who can intercede on behalf of a soul. By petitioning God the son, she has both influence and pity, making her a favorite person for Christians to pray to.
It is due to these divine women that the narrators are given a chance at redemption. Beatrice personally helps Dante out of the dark times of his life. Likewise, the narrator of Pearl is lost in his grief and requires aid to find his way out. Even though the narrators have betrayed these women, they represent the forgiving power of God.
That doesn’t mean, though, that the men escape harsh judgment. Beatrice is positively scalding, since Dante’s betrayal was a personal one. She refutes him for chasing women after her death. Pearl can be seen as a sort of reversal, in that Pearl refutes the narrator for continuing to chase her after her death. Her focus is on loyalty to God, and Pearl takes no claim that she is God. Note, though, that Beatrice is seemingly closer to God than the Pearl maiden. While Pearl stresses that all worthy women in heaven are ranked equally, there still seems to be a pecking order. Beatrice personally intercedes with higher powers to save Dante’s soul, while Pearl seems to have dropped down for a visit.
There’s something about her guidance that seems more unofficial. Dante, in his Vita
Nuova, suggests that Beatrice is not simply a woman that he loved – she is something that transcends humanity.
Woman as a vision guide is a surprisingly common trope in medieval literature.
Much has been made about the fact that traditional gender roles are switched in these two poems, but that is simply the nature of the afterlife. As Finlayson succinctly says “it is usual for visionary female guides or instructors to greet the dreamer” (3). He later goes on to observe that though female guides are not unheard of, they are usually present in visions of plein d’amour. This makes logical and historical sense, as authors
27 are petitioning women through their poetry. Pearl and the Commedia, though, are more elegy than plein d’amour. They both have plenty of love, but they are not focused on the possible romantic relationship as La Romance de la Rose (or really any fin d’amours poetry.)
The Pearl narrator simply turns his back to God, but that still serves as a grave insult to Pearl. She decries him as being an “unworthy jeweler,” thus unworthy to be in her divine grace. Beatrice shares the same attitude, refusing to remove her veil in
Dante’s presence. In both scenarios the narrators are somewhat surprised by the seething remarks of their lost women. Dante becomes speechless in his shame. The
Pearl narrator, though, is more surprised since he last saw his daughter when she was two. Now, she surpasses his wisdom and can harshly judge him on his false actions.
Even if Pearl was not the poet’s daughter, it is apparent that the bond between the two was strong. Pearl must have cared quite a bit about the narrator, or otherwise she wouldn’t speak so passionately.
Susan Halloran asserts that while most medieval attention is centered on the male, the female influence is impossible to escape. In particular, that “Through dialogue exchanges between male and female characters, identity is established (49).” The woman is a Lacanian mirror through which the male can find his true self. Pearl and
Beatrice are the counterpoints to the narrators – a side of themselves that they must learn to integrate. They must learn the more feminine attributes to living a good life, such as patience and endurance. In attempting to embrace the feminine physically, they both fell short of embracing her mentally. In a more typical Lacanian mirror, the females would also learn more about themselves from their male counterparts. This is not so much applicable here, though, as the women are the authority figures. They have
28 already earned their salvation – they have no need to change. It is only the men who have to mend their ways to suit God.
The processions described in Pearl and Purgatorio cantos 29-32 are based on the
Book of Revelation. They are pageants – allegories within allegories. Present in both are various allegorical figures surrounding Christ. Forming a notable part of both processions are the female embodiments of virtues. Pearl features 144,000 virgin brides of Christ, including Pearl herself. The number of women in Purgatorio’s procession is fewer, but they are no less significant. Particularly of note are the four female virtues, which Beatrice is a combination of. There are also some similarities between the setting of Pearl’s procession and the Empyrean of Paradiso. Gold is the main coloring of both, describing everything from the city to the lighting. New Jerusalem is the biblical precedent for both scenes, albeit with some notable creative flourishes. In the Book of
Revelations, each gate is made up of a single pearl. In Pearl, it is fittingly the character
Pearl that allows the narrator to view New Jerusalem. In Paradiso, it is Beatrice that serves this purpose. They are both given special providence to allow their loved ones to see heaven.
Dante portrays Jesus as both a gryphon and a lamb. Christ is a very popular figure for allegorization, as Christian philosophy believes that he is present in everything. He can be seen as anything, whether real or imaginary, and it will still hold a divine aura. Fictitious creatures, though, are favored as they represent that Christ is something not of this world. He is beyond human imagination, and only appears in the guise of animals to make a statement. The gryphon is a combination of a lion and an eagle, which are representations of the different strengths of Christ. The lamb, on the other hand, represents his love for the world and his sacrifice. Similarly, the Christ of
29 Pearl is a wounded lamb. He was a sacrifice for the good of the human population, who flank him in this procession. Both pageants represent the apocalypse and the forthcoming judgment of God. Only once the narrators have gone through this process can they view Paradise.
In these versions of the apocalypse, Beatrice and Pearl are cast as Christ figures.
They died long before their time, yet their goodness cast them into the highest ranks of heaven. They are both heavily grieved by the turns that their beloveds take, but are willing to forgive them. The main point is that the narrators have moved on to another realm and arrived at the final judgment. Through divine grace, Pearl and Beatrice forgive them their sins and grant them a vision of the future. These futures are both based on the biblical idea of a New Jerusalem. Pearl is a fairly strict interpretation of the
Book of Revelations. The procession of Purgatorio is more abstract, but it still has a biblical precedent. As previously noted, Beatrice is linked to Christ through numerology. He was 33 when he died – and 3 multiplied by three is nine, or Beatrice.
This might be a touch too mathematical, but she is Christ at her very root.
Many scholars favor the theory that the Pearl Poet and Dante came to similar conclusions by drawing on the same source materials. They maintain that any likeness is coincidence, and that the Pearl Poet could not have had access to Dante’s material.
Certainly, Dante and the Pearl Poet were familiar with the trappings of a “continental” education. They would have both had extensive training in the Bible, as well as commentaries by the fathers of the church. Other works in Latin, particularly ancient
Roman texts, were frequently reviewed. Unlike today, there was a cohesive idea of what constituted a proper liberal arts education. Also, the number of great works was very small, so the expectation for a learned person to know all of them was nothing extreme.
30 However, given the sheer number of parallels, it seems likely that the Pearl Poet had access to Dante’s Commedia. The similarities in narrative structure, imagery, and form simply cannot be ignored. Even someone with no formal background in medieval literature would be struck by these literary doppelgangers. However, the question of influence cannot be definitively answered based on the current evidence. It is possible that two brilliant poets living in two different times came up with the exact same visions.
Very unlikely, but it is still theologically feasible. Without uncovering more definitive documents, though, this is a mystery that is to be left unsolved.
31