Pearl Poet
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The "Pearl Poet", or the "Gawain Poet", is the name given to the author of Pearl, an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English. Its author appears also to have written the poems Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness; some scholars have suggested he or she may also have composed Saint Erkenwald. Save for the latter (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 greatest poetry written in Middle English.
The Pearl Poet is in modern scholarship most often identified as John Massey, a member of the landed gentry from Cheshire. There is still considerable doubt, however, as to whether Massey was actually the author of the Cotton Nero A.x poems.
