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Some Notes on the Pearl

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Oliver Farrar Emerson
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Extract

In spite of all that has been done to elucidate this beautiful poem, there still seems to be room to add some items in textual emendation and explanation. The pioneer work of Morris was excellent for its time, and is still to be reckoned with. Gollancz and Osgood have added much in their editions of the poem, and such commentators as Kölbing and Holthausen have made interesting suggestions. Nor must we neglect the critical studies of Fick and Knigge, Fischer and Schumacker. The comments of all of these and of others who have less fully considered the poem must be read and weighed by any who would understand this nameless poet, who at his best may be ranked with the great ones of the fourteenth century. His language, however, and sometimes his careless indication of sentence union and transition make the closest reading necessary.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 37 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1921 , March 1922 , pp. 52 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1922

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References

1 It has not been noticed, I believe, that in the Cotton MS. of the Cursor Mundi, written in the late fourteenth century, there is sometimes the same confusion between final i (y) and e. Thus final e corresponds to OE. -ig in bode ‘body’ (14309), bodes pl. (5402), fifte ‘fifty’ (9164), fourte ‘forty’ (2758), ferles ‘ferly, wonder’ pl. (15130), thritte ‘thirty’ (1434), anlepe ‘single’ (9521), but anlep (27939), hungre ‘hungry’ (4571), selle ‘wonderful’ (26010), semle ‘seemly’ (28015), semele adv. (8322), unsele ‘unhappy’ (7279); to OF. -ie in felunne ‘felony’ (2834), maistre ‘mastery’ (7513), maumentre ‘idolatry’ (9188, Fairf. MS. Mamentre), Alexandre ‘Alexandria’ (21589), levelilade for levelade ‘livelihood’ (24686), Mare ‘Mary’ (155, with which cf. Gaw. 1769), velune ‘villany’ (Fairf. MS. 803); to OF. ē in prive ‘privy, secret’ (2338), privite ‘secrecy’ (2738). It would seem that the change of final e to i, indicated occasionally by the written form even in the Chaucer MSS., had become so frequent in Northern English that either e or i(y) might be used for the sound. Chaucer examples of this same fact are foly ‘foolishly'= fole adv. of fol ‘foolish’ (B. of D. 874), and oundy ‘wavy,‘ OF. oundē (H. F. 1386).

2 With these diverse spellings, compare those of Spenser in such words as charitie (y, ee), company, cruelty, flatery, frailty, nativity, vanity, victory.

3 Pearl, Introd. X, footnote.

4 The abbreviations Pl., Cl., Pat., Gaw. have already been used in this paper for Pearl, Clannesse, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. For conciseness, M., G., O. will be used for the three editors Morris, Gollancz, and Osgood. Other abbreviations will be readily understood, as AN., CF., NF., for Anglo-Norman, Central French, Norman French; OAng. for Old Anglian; Scand. for Scandinavian, usually Old West Scandinavian. So NED. for the New English Dictionary, EDD. for the English Dialect Dictionary, CtDict. the Century.