Title
Country/Nationality
The Gawain Poet
The "Gawain Poet", or less commonly the "Pearl Poet", is the name given to the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English. Its author appears also to have written the poems Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness; some scholars suggest the author may also have composed Saint Erkenwald. Save for the last (found in BL-MS Harley 2250), all these works are known from a single surviving manuscript, the British Library holding Cotton Nero A.x. This body of work includes some of the most highly-regarded poetry written in Middle English.
The Gawain Poet is unidentified. One suggestion is that the poem is attributable to John Massey, a member of the landed gentry from Cheshire. This attribution of the poems of Cotton Nero A.x is not widely accepted, however, reflected in continued use of the labels "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet".
Books by The Gawain Poet
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs, the...
Pearl
Pearl is a late 14th-century Middle English poem that is considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works. With elements of medieval allegory and dream vision genre, the poem is written in a North-West Midlands variety of Middle En...
Gawayne and the Green Knight (Lewis Translation)
Charlton Miner Lewis' version of Gawayne and the Green Knight, a late 14th century alliterative romance, is written in modern language telling the story of the Green Knight's challenge to Gawayne, and the romance between Sir Gawayne and Lady Elfinhea...
Gawayne and the Green Knight
Published in 1903, Gawayne and the Green Knight is a modern-language retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 14th-century verse romance following a young knight of the Round Table. During Christmas celebrations, a mysterious, entirely green k...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Neilson Translation)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In the tale, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is compl...
Pearl (Jewett translation)
Written in the 14th century by the Gawain poet, 'Pearl' is an elegiac poem reflecting on the death of a young daughter, pictured as a pearl lost in a garden. It is considered a masterpiece of Middle English verse, incorporating both the older traditi...
Pearl (Coulton translation)
A companion piece to From Jerusalem to Revelations in the Librivox catalogue (https://librivox.org/jerusalem-to-revelations-a-quartet-of-spiritual-explorations-by-unknown/). Pearl, believed to have been written by the author of the Pagano-Christian...
Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knicht
A mysterious Green Knight arrives at King Arthurs court at Camelot to propose a New Year's game. Strike the Knight a blow with his axe, and receive the same blow one year hence. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge and beheads the Green Knight, who coo...
Pearl (Weston translation)
Pearl is a structurally complex mediaeval poem that combines narrative, allegory, dream vision, elegy, affirmation of Christian faith and meditation on grief. This recording is of Jessie Laidlay Weston’s translation from the Middle English.