SOURCE: An introduction to Pearl: An English Poem of the XIVth Century, Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1966, pp. xi-lii.

In the following essay, Gollancz discusses the Pearl manuscript, its contents and date, the poem's place in English literature; the plan of the poem, its genre, and its relationship to its main sources; its imagery, meter, diction, and style; and the possible identity of its author.

'Pearl' in the Lineage of English Poetry.—While Chaucer was still learning from Guillaume de Machault and his followers the cult of the Marguerite, flower of flowers, as symbol of womanhood, a contemporary English poet had already found inspiration in the more spiritual associations of the Marguerite as the Pearl of Price.

It is indeed rather with the Prologue of 'The Legend of Good Women' than with Chaucer's earlier effort of 'The Book of the Duchess' that the poem of 'Pearl' may best be...