ABSTRACT Poetics of Holiness: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Pearl Poet Elisabeth G. Wolfe, Ph.D. Mentor: D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., Ph.D. Scholars have often acknowledged Bernard of Clairvaux as a probable influence on the four poems surviving in MS Cotton Nero A.x.—Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—but few have pursued the interpretive potential of comparisons between the writings of the twelfth‐century abbot and those of the anonymous fourteenth‐century poet. Both men wrote to similar audiences and shared a common concern: persuading an indifferent culture that the purity of heart without which none can see God is a worthwhile goal, despite the difficulties one encounters along the way. Examining parallels between the two authors reveals key insights into Gawain’s battle for virtue, implications for monastic audiences of Jonah’s impatience and for clerics of God’s intolerance of habitual sin, and the Dreamer’s theological errors that hinder his pursuit of God. Poetics of Holiness: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Pearl Poet by Elisabeth G. Wolfe, B.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English ___________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Barry A. Harvey, Ph.D. ___________________________________ David Lyle Jeffrey, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Joe B. Fulton, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School August 2009 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2009 by Elisabeth G. Wolfe All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations and Sources ....................................................................................... vii Preface .......................................................................................................................... x Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... xii Dedication .................................................................................................................... xv Chapter One: Introduction: The Theologians and the Critics ............................ 1 Bernard of Clairvaux: A Scarcely Acknowledged Influence .................. 6 A Note on Intertextual Connections: Source, Influence, or Inspiration? .......................................................................................... 14 Toward a Deeper Reading ............................................................................ 17 Part One: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Defense of Virtue .................... 26 Chapter Two: Theology under Cover of Romance: De gradibus humilitate et superbiae in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight .............. 27 The Character of Gawain and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ... 27 The Steps in Gawain ............................................................................ 30 The Judgment of Gawain .................................................................. 44 Stealing Past Watchful Dragons? The Audience of Gawain ........ 46 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 49 iii Chapter Three: Nif Maré of Hir Knyʒt Mynne: Bernardine Marianism in Gawain .......................................................................... 51 The Marian Symbolism of Gawain’s Shield ................................... 52 Testing Mary’s Knight ....................................................................... 64 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 68 Part Two: Patience and Cleanness: The Obligations of Religious and Secular Clergy ............................................................................................................... 70 Chapter Four: Þaʒ Hit Displese Ofte: Patience and Bernard’s Writings on Monastic Obedience ..................................................... 71 Patience in the Rule of Benedict .......................................................... 72 Bernard on Patience, Poverty, and Obedience ............................... 75 Fugitive Monks and De praecepto et dispensatione ........................... 79 The Example of Jonah ........................................................................ 82 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 88 Chapter Five: What Not to Wear: Clerical Reform in Cleanness and Bernard’s Writings to the Clergy ..................................................... 90 Textual Evidence of a Clerical Audience ........................................ 92 De conversione ad clericos and the Clergy’s Need for Personal Holiness .................................................................................... 98 The Negative Exemplars ................................................................... 103 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 109 iv Part Three: Pearl: The Pursuit of God .................................................................... 111 Chapter Six: Saf by Ryʒt? Merit and Grace in the Narrative of Pearl and Bernard’s Sermons and Treatises ............................................. 112 The Grace/Works Dichotomy and Bernard’s De gratia et libero arbitrio ....................................................................................... 113 The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard .................................. 116 Holy Innocents and the Fate of Infants ........................................... 120 The New Jerusalem, the Church, and the Bride of Christ ............ 126 All Saints’ Day and the Community of Believers .......................... 131 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 135 Chapter Seven: My Lemman Swete: The Dreamer, the Pearl Maiden, and Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God .......................................... 136 Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God ................................................. 136 The Dreamer and the Pearl Maiden ................................................. 143 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 150 Chapter Eight: Vnavysed, Forsoþe: The Dreamer’s Ignorance and Bernard’s Discussions of Knowledge, Reason, and Will .............. 152 Bernard on Knowledge in Sermones in Cantica ............................... 153 Overcoming the Dreamer’s Wretched Will .................................... 157 Overcoming the Dreamer’s Ignorance ............................................ 161 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 172 Chapter Nine: Conclusion ........................................................................................ 174 v Appendices .................................................................................................................. 178 Appendix A: Fourteenth‐Century British Libraries Housing Bernardine Manuscripts .................................................................... 179 Appendix B: Bernardine Titles Commonly Held in Fourteenth‐ Century British Libraries ................................................................... 180 Appendix C: Could the Pearl Poet Have Been a Cistercian? ................... 181 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 185 Works Cited ..................................................................................................... 185 Additional Works Consulted ........................................................................ 196 vi ABBREVIATIONS AND SOURCES The following abbreviations will be used for parenthetical citations and footnotes only: AW The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, ed. Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron (Berkeley: U of California P, 1979) BCP Book of Common Prayer De cons. De consideratione (SBO III: 393‐493; trans. Five Books on Consideration) De conv. De conversione ad clericos (SBO IV: 69‐116; trans. Sermons on Conversion 31‐79) DLVM De laudibus virginis matris (SBO IV: 13‐58; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 1: 53‐132) MED Middle English Dictionary QH Sermones xvii in Ps. XC “Qui habitat” (SBO IV: 383‐492; trans. Sermons on Conversion 115‐261) RB Regula Benedicti (trans. The Holy Rule of St. Benedict) SBO Sancti Bernardi Opera, gen. ed. Jean Leclercq (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957‐1977). 8 vols. in 9. SC Sermones in Cantica Canticorum (SBO I: 1‐255, II: 1‐320; trans. On the Song of Songs) SD Sermones de diversis (SBO VI‐1: 73‐406; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 3: 397‐552) Sent. Sententiae (SBO VI‐2: 1‐255; trans. The Parables and the Sentences 117‐ 458) vii SS Sermones de sanctis (as Sermones per annum, SBO V: 1‐447; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 3: 1‐396) ST Sermones de tempore (as Sermones per annum, SBO V: 1‐447; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 1: 1‐52, 309‐446, 2: 1‐433) All Scripture quotations are from the Douay‐Rheims Version, unless noted otherwise; in‐text references to the Psalms will follow the Hebrew numbering