Gawain Poet facts for kids
The "Gawain Poet" (pronounced GA-wayn or GA-win), also sometimes called the "Pearl Poet", was a writer in England during the late 1300s. We don't know their real name. This poet wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a famous poem from the 14th century.
The Gawain Poet also wrote other important poems: Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness. Some experts think they might have written Saint Erkenwald too. All these poems, except St. Erkenwald, are found together in one old book called the 'Cotton MS Nero A.x.' at the British Library. These poems are considered some of the best poetry written in Middle English.
We don't know who the Gawain Poet was. Some people have suggested it was John Massey from Cheshire, a member of a wealthy family. However, most experts still prefer to use the names "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet" because the author's true identity remains a mystery.
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Who Was the Gawain Poet?
The way the poems are written shows that the poet lived around the same time as other famous English writers like Geoffrey Chaucer. All four poems in the Cotton MS Nero A.x. book use a specific type of Middle English language. This language was spoken in the north-western parts of Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire in England.
This suggests the poet likely came from one of these areas. Most experts believe the poet was a man and wrote these poems in the late 1300s. The similar language and the fact that the poems are in the same manuscript strongly suggest they were all written by the same person.
We can learn a bit about the poet from their writing. They seem to have been well-educated. The poems show a lot of knowledge about hunting, royal courts, and the local landscape. The poet also seemed interested in the idea of being poor as a Christian good deed.
However, the Gawain Poet didn't mention current scholarly ideas, unlike Chaucer. Their poems often refer to older stories, like the Arthurian legends and tales from the Bible. This makes it less likely that the poet worked at a university or a monastery in London. Still, the poet must have been educated and probably came from a good family, perhaps landed gentry.
In 1925, famous writers J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. They believed the poet was a serious and religious person, but also had a sense of humor. They thought the poet knew about theology (the study of religion) and could read Latin and French. However, their true home was in the West Midlands of England, as shown by their language and descriptions of nature.
The poet wrote during a time when English literature was changing a lot. The English language itself was also changing, partly because of French influences. The poet's complex writing style and references to things like heraldry (family symbols) and hunting suggest they were writing for an educated audience.
Poet's Knowledge and Influences
The poems Cleanness, Patience, and Pearl show that the poet knew the Vulgate Bible, which was the Latin version of the Bible. In Pearl, the poet clearly understood not only the Book of Revelation but also many other parts of the Bible. It's possible the poet even read commentaries (explanations) on these books.
The poet used common Christian ideas from the Old Testament. For example, they saw Jonah's time in the whale as a symbol of Christ's descent into Hell. They also used Abraham's three angels as a symbol of the Trinity. The poet seemed most interested in the direct meaning of the Bible stories.
Pearl also shows the poet understood mystical theology, which is about experiencing God directly. The poet's description of a "spiritual dream" suggests they knew how mystical visions were classified. This doesn't mean the poet had extraordinary learning; many religious writings were widely understood back then.
It's harder to find proof that the poet knew classical writers like Virgil and Ovid, unlike Chaucer. However, some experts believe there are small hints of Virgil and Seneca the Younger in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It's very likely the poet knew many Latin books that were popular among educated people in the Middle Ages.
When and Where the Poet Lived
It's hard to say exactly when the "Alliterative Revival" happened, which was a period when poems using alliterative verse became popular again. These poems are a big part of that movement. It's thought that this revival started in the south-west Midlands and was strongest in the late 1300s.
Dating the Gawain Poet's works is tricky. They could have been written as early as the 1360s or as late as the manuscript itself, which is from around 1400. Most experts believe the poet was alive and writing between the mid-1370s and mid-1380s.
The British Library Cotton MS Nero A.x. is the only surviving collection of Middle English poems that are all alliterative. There's a strong agreement that the language of both the scribe (the person who copied the poems) and the author points to the north-west Midlands, especially Cheshire.
Many critics like the idea that the Gawain Poet worked for a noble family in the countryside, perhaps like the character Sir Bertilak in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In the poem, Sir Gawain travels into Cheshire from Wales to find the Green Chapel. Sir Robert Grosvenor, who was a sheriff in Chester and born around 1342, lived in Hulme, Cheshire. His home was only a few miles north of the area that experts believe the poet came from, and it's near the uplands linked to the Green Chapel in the poem.
Theories About the Poet's Identity
Since the Gawain Poet's name is unknown, many theories have been suggested over time.
John Prat and John Donne
Some experts have suggested that the poem Pearl was written to remember the daughter of John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Two of his clerks, John Prat and John Donne, have been put forward as possible authors.
"Huchoun"
In the early 1900s, some people thought a man named Huchoun (meaning "little Hugh") might have written the poems. He was credited with several works, including some in the alliterative style. The Cotton MS Nero A.x. manuscript even has "Hugo de" written in it later.
However, this idea is mostly ignored today. This is because the poems linked to Huchoun seem to have been written in very different dialects (types of language).
John (or Hugh) Massey
The Massey family was important in Cheshire. Their name is connected to St. Erkenwald, a poem sometimes thought to be by the Pearl Poet. The names Thomas Massey and Elizabeth Booth are written in the manuscript of St. Erkenwald.
In 1956, Ormerod Greenwood suggested that Hugh Massey from Sale was the author. He found some wordplay in Pearl that seemed to point to Hugh, along with the "Hugo de" note in the manuscript. Because of the name "Hugh," some academics have linked Hugh Massey with Huchoun.
Later, in 1971, John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire, was suggested as the author. This idea was supported by a poem from Thomas Hoccleve, who mentioned "my master Massy" as a tough critic of poetry. However, this idea is not widely accepted by modern experts.
John Stanley
Andrew Breeze has suggested that Sir John Stanley (who lived from about 1350 to 1414) could be the poet. He was a Knight of the Garter. The motto of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal pense (meaning "Shame on him who thinks evil of it"), is at the end of Sir Gawain. This is seen as a clue. Sir John Stanley also knew a lot about hunting and armor, which are described in Gawain, and he came from the right part of England.
Richard Newton
In 1979, Bennett suggested that Sir Gawain was written by an ancestor of Humphrey Newton, a landowner from the north-west who seemed to know the poem in the 1500s. Richard Newton, who wrote some poems in the late 1300s, was suggested as a possible candidate. This was based on how his writing style seemed similar to parts of Sir Gawain. However, this theory was not widely accepted.
See also
In Spanish: Poeta Pearl para niños
