SOURCE: An introduction "The Maiden as an Innocent" and "The Priviledges of the Newly Baptized," in Pearl in Its Setting: A Critical Study of the Structure and Meaning of the Middle English Poem, Basil Blackwell, 1968, pp. 101-03, 104-112, 113-21.

In the following essay, Bishop finds that the liturgy in use during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries provides important information for understanding the poet's characterization of the Pearl maiden..

Introductory

In order to represent the apparition of the child's beatified soul, the author has to supply her with a visionary body of appropriate stature and appearance; with suitable clothing; and with arguments that will justify her status in the Kingdom of Heaven and that will console her earthly father.

Scholars have provided explanations of several details of the poet's presentation of her. There is, for example, the fact that, although she died before she was two years old, she...