Pearls Of Dew

The fourteenth-century Middle English poem Pearl is one of the best dream vision poems ever written, yet its language (the Northwest Midlands dialect of late-medieval England) and literary allusions (to biblical, mythological, and medieval works) make it difficult for modern readers to understand. This new dual-language edition of Pearl provides the original Middle English with a facing-page modern English translation. It includes a comprehensive introduction, annotations of key words and ideas, reproduction of the four manuscript illustrations, a literary sourcebook, and lists of biblical sources, significant liturgical dates, and the concatenation words. Literary and biblical sources for the poem are provided as appendices.

The preparation of this book has been a joint labor during the spare moments of the two authors, whose time has been occupied with subjects to which pearls are not wholly foreign—one as a gem expert, and the other in the fisheries branch of the American government. For many years the writers have collected data on the subject of pearls, and have accumulated all the obtainable literature, not only the easily procurable books, but likewise manuscripts, copies of rare volumes, original edicts, and legislative enactments, thousands of newspaper clippings, and interesting illustrations, many of them unique, making probably the largest single collection of data in existence on this particular subject. It was deemed advisable to present the results of these studies and observations in one harmonious volume, rather than in two different publications. While the book is a joint work in the sense that each writer has contributed material to all of the chapters and has critically examined and approved the entire work, the senior author has more closely applied himself to the latter half of the text, covering antiquity values, commerce, wearing manipulation, treatment, famous collections, aboriginal use, and the illustrations, while the junior author has attended to the earlier half of the book, with reference to history, origin, sources, fisheries, culture, mystical properties, and the literature of the pearl.

This study of an extraordinary work of dramatic literature also addresses questions of the nature and dissemination of the scientific revolution. These facets are locked together: although the book does not deny that 'The Tempest' had deep roots in classical literature and elsewhere, it maintains that the play's remarkable dramaturgy and symbolism reflect subtle matters uniquely pertinet to its own fascinating time. A 'Brave New World of Knowledge' uncovers a number of previously little-appreciated connections of 'The Tempest' with specific problems or advances of knowledge, thus showing that the play reflected innovative proto-scientific modes of confronting the physical, biological, and human realms. It also argues that Shakespeare's play mirrored a new tendency to repudiate earlier Renaissance dreams of achieving omniscience and omnipotence. The play reflected a newer hope for knowledge based on speculative boldness linked with close observation, rational and sober precision, and a radical capacity to accept limitation and not-knowing.