The Voice Of The Gawain Poet

Starting from the assumption taht 'Pearl', 'Purity', 'Patience' and 'Sir Gawain and the Green knight' are by one poet, W.A. Davenport seeks to define the nature of his art. He makes a close analysis of each poem, considering the four not so much in their historical context as for their immediate poetic effect.

Examination of key texts - Chaucer to Wyclif - sheds new light on medieval spirituality. The relationship between versions of the late medieval Church, faith, ethics and the lay powers, as explored in a range of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century texts written in England, is the subject of this book. It argues that they disclose strikingly diverse models of Christian discipleship, and examines the sources and consequences of such differences. Issues investigated include whether the Church could shape modern communities and individualidentities, and how it could combine its status as a major landlord and trader without being assimilated by the various networks of earthly power and profit. The book begins with Chaucer's treatment of received versions of faith,ethics and the Church, and moves via St Thomas, Ockham, Nicholas Love, Gower, the Gawain-poet and Langland (who pursues the issues with particular intensity and focus) to Wyclif's construal of Christian discipleship in relation to his projected reform of the Church. Interdisciplinary in approach, the book will be of interest to all those studying late medieval Christianity and literature. DAVID AERS is James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Historical Theology at Duke University.

Offers the full-length study of the descriptive art found in four medieval poems: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Purity, and Patience.

The late 14th century produced a crop of brilliant writers: Chaucer, Langland and Gower. Their achievement was rivalled only by a series of four works generally agreed to have been written by a single northern author, known as the Gawain-Poet. This book introduces the reader to the Gawain-poet's four surviving works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Pearl and Cleanness. The four poems are made accessible to the student by setting them in their relevant historical and cultural context and by developing some lines of critical argument. All studies are based on the author's own research and translations.

Each of these essays considers the convoluted nature of the transmission process in question, and reconsiders the historical framework that has informed our own reception of it."--BOOK JACKET.

"From Becoming the Pearl-Poet, students and scholars alike can learn about the Pearl-poet and the five poems attributed to him, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and St Erkenwald, exploring key ideas that will inform a deeper understanding and appreciation of this medieval English writer's work"--

This literary study offers a fresh view of the significance of the famous group of fourteenth-century poems, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is a comprehensive study which puts the poems themselves firmly at its center, though it is always alert to relevant aspects of their literary and cultural context. John Anderson finds that the great fourteenth-century struggle, between religious and secular forces for control of men's minds, underlies all the poems. Despite its wide range of reference and the radicalism of some of its leading ideas, this book is written in a jargon-free style designed to appeal to specialist, non-specialist and student readers alike.