SOURCE: "Conventions and Traditions in the Poems," in The Complete Works of the Gawain-Poet, The University of Chicago Press, 1965, pp. 13-36.

In the following essay, Gardner places Pearl in the tradition of alliterative courtly verse and comments on the poet's skillful use of the elaborate ornamentation created with patterns of rhyme, alliteration, numeric symbolism, and the important symbolism emanating from the four-level system of biblical exegesis.

In their selection of poetic forms, Chaucer and the Gawain-poet differ. Chaucer's parson disparages the ancient English "rum, ram, ruf" school of poetry, and whether or not Chaucer agrees with his parson, his poems are not alliterative. The Gawain-poet, on the other hand, announces at once in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that he intends to tell his story

Rightly, as it is written,
 A story swift and strong
 With letters locked and linking,
 As scōps have always...