Contenu
"In this book, Arthur Bahr takes a fresh look at a much-studied, unique object in English literature: the four poems and many illustrations contained in the so-called "Pearl-Manuscript" (British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x/2). These poems have been the subject of much scholarship, especially Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, two of the most well-known and -read poems from the English Middle Ages. Here Bahr attempts the first analysis of the poems and material object together. He explores how the physical manuscript itself--its composition and compilation, its intersecting aesthetic effects across linguistic and visual lines--enhances our perception of the poetry. Bahr reads Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight through the lens of their unique, material incarnation in this singular object, taking advantage of recent technological advances (e.g., spectroscopic analysis and digital facsimiles) to show the Pearl-Manuscript to be a more complex piece of material, visual, and textual art than previous scholarship has allowed. Combining technology, literary close reading, and visual analysis, he connects the manuscript's material construction to the intricately wrought shapes, themes, and textual beauties evoked in the poetry to suggest new ways to understand what the poems are and do"--