This section contains 984 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
SOURCE: A preface to Early English Alliterative Poems. Oxford University Press, 1965, pp. ix-xx.
In the following excerpt, Morris considers Pearl to be a valuable resource for understanding early English and the art and tradition of the poet.
[In "The Pearl"], the author evidently gives expression to his own sorrow for the loss of his infant child, a girl of two years old, whom he describes as a
Perle pleasaunte to prynces paye
Pearl pleasant to princes' pleasure,
To clanly clos in golde so clere
Most neatly set in gold so clear.
Of her death he says:
Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere
Alas! I lost her in an arbour,
ÞurƷ gresse to grounde hit fro me yot
Through grass to ground it from me got.—
(p-1.)
The writer then represents himself as visiting his child's grave (or arbour) in the "high season of August," and giving way...
This section contains 984 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |