Bibliography

On Reserve in the Library:

• J. J. Anderson, Cleanness (Manchester, 1977).
• Robert J. Blanch, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Reference Guide (Troy, N.Y., 1983).
• Marie Boroff, ‘Pearl’: A New Verse Translation (New York and Toronto, 1977).
• Marie Boroff, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (New York, 1967).
• John Gardner, The Complete Works of the Gawain Poet (Chicago, London and Amsterdam, 1965).
• Brian Stone, The Owl and the Nightingale, Cleanness, St Erkenwald (London, 1971).
• William Vantuono, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Dual-Language Version (New York, 1991).
• William Vantuono, Pearl: An Edition with Verse Translation (New York, 1995).

General Historical Background:

• Gervase Mathew, The Court of Richard II (1968).
• Nigel Saul, Richard II (1999).
• Nigel Saul, The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England (Oxford, 2001).

Literary History:

• J.A. Burrow, Ricardian Poetry (1971).
• J.A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and Their Work: An Introduction to Middle English Literature (1982).
• Ralph Hannah, “Alliterative Poetry”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge, 1999).

Individual Works:

Note: These references are far from complete. You should still search the MLA Bibliography for a larger range of works, including the most recent ones. The references below are for the most part discussions of the individual poems or general works with substantial discussions on the individual poems. Some may not be in the CSUN library and will have to be ordered by interlibrary loan, so plan ahead.

Patience

• J.J. Anderson, "The Prologue of Patience," Modern Philology 63 (1965-6): 283-7.
• Malcolm Andrew, "Jonah and Christ in Patience," Modern Philology 70 (1972-3): 320-33.
• Anna P. Baldwin, "The Triumph of Patience in Julian of Norwich and Langland," in Langland, the Mystics, and the Medieval English Tradition: Essays in Honour of S.S. Hussey, ed. Helen Phillips (Woodbridge, 1990).
• Normand Berlin, "Patience: A Study in Poetic Elaboration," Studia Neophilologica 33 (1961): 80-85.
• R.H. Bowers, The Legend of Jonah (The Hague, 1971).
• J.A. Burrow, "Two Notes on Patience," Notes and Queries 234 (1989): 300-3.
• S.L. Clark and Julian N. Wasserman, "Jonah and the Whale: Narrative Perspective in Patience," Orbis Literarum 35 (1980): 1-19.
• W.A. Davenport, The Art of the Gawain-Poet (London, 1978).
• F.N.M Diekstra, "Jonah and Patience: The Psychology of a Prophet," English Studies 55 (1974): 205-17.
• John B. Friedman, "Figural Typology in Patience," in The Alliterative Tradition in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach (Kent, Ohio, 1981).
• Ordelle G. Hill, "The Audience of Patience," Modern Philology 66 (1968-9): 103-9.
• Charles Moorman, "The Role of the Narrator in Patience," Modern Philology 61 (1963-4): 90-95.
• Jay Schleusner, "History and Action in Patience," Publications of the Modern Language Association 86 (1971): 959-65.
• R.A. Shoaf, "God's 'Malyse': Metaphor and Conversion in Patience," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11 (1981-2): 261-79.
• A.C. Spearing, "Patience and the Gawain-Poet," Anglia 84 (1966): 305-29.
• A.C. Spearing, The Gawain-Poet: A Critical Study (Cambridge, 1970).
• Sarah Stanbury, "Space and Visual Hermeneutics in the Gawain-Poet," Chaucer Review 21 (1987): 476-89.
• Myra Stokes, "Suffering in Patience," Chaucer Review 18 (1983-4): 354-64.
• Wiliam Vantuono, "The Structure and Sources of Patience," Mediaeval Studies 34 (1972): 402-22.
• David Williams, "The Point of Patience," Modern Philology 68 (1970-71): 127-36.

Cleanness

• S.L. Clark and Julian N. Wasserman, “Purity: The Cities of the Dove and the Raven,” American Benedictine Review 19 (1978): 284-306.
• Penelope B.R. Doob, “Nebuchadnezzar and the Conventions of Madness,” in Nebuchadnezzar’s Children: Conventions of Madness in Middle English Literature (New Haven, 1974).
• Jonathan A. Glenn, “Dislocution of Kynde in the Middle English Cleanness,” Chaucer Review 18 (1983-4): 77-91.
• Elizabeth A. Keiser, “The Festive Decorum of Cleanness,” Studies in Medieval Culture 14 (1980): 63-75.
• T.D. Kelly and J.T. Irwin, “The Meaning of Cleanness: parable as effective sign,” Medieval Studies 35 (1973): 232-60.
• A.V.C. Schmidt, “Kynde Craft and the Play of Paramore3”: Natural and Unnatural Love in Purity,” in Genres, Themes, and Images in English Literature, ed. Piero Boitano and Anna Torti (Tübingen, 1988), 105-24.
• Earl G. Schneiber, “The Structure of Cleanness,” in The Alliterative Tradition in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach (Kent, Ohio, 1981).
• A.C. Spearing, The Gawain-Poet: A Critical Study (Cambridge, 1970).
• A.C. Spearing, “Purity and Danger,” Essays in Criticism 30 (1980): 293-310.
• William Vantuono, “A Triple-Three Structure for Cleanness,” Manuscripta 28 (1984): 26-37.
• David Wallace, “Cleanness and the Terms of Terror,” in Text and Matter: New Critical Perspectives on the Pearl-Poet,” eds. R.J. Blanch, M.Y. Miller, and J.N. Wasserman (New York, 1991), 93-104.

Pearl

• Robert W. Ackerman, "The Pearl-Maiden and the Penny." Romance Philology 17 (1964), 615-23. Reprinted in Conley, Pp. 149-62. [English and Continental sources for female instructresses and the parable of the vineyard; penny as Eucharistic host.]
• David Aers. "The Self Mourning: Reflections on Pearl." Speculum 69 (1993), 54-73. [Situates narrator within sociopolitical interests of late fourteenth-century court culture; narrator's individualism at odds with maiden's idealization of Catholic communal values.]
• Ross G. Arthur, "The Day of Judgment is Now: A Johannine Pattern in the Middle English Pearl." American Benedictine Review 38 (1987), 227-42. [Pearl in relation to medieval sign theory.]
• Ann W. Astell. The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990 [Maiden as Anima, or the Bernardine trope of mystical brideship. Male protagonist must encompass feminine principle within himself.]
• Helen Barr, "Pearl--or 'The Jeweller's Tale.'" Medium Ævum 69 (2000), 59-79. [Pearls and gems in late fourteenth-century aristocratic culture; poem's "mercantile consciousness" (61) and concerns with social order.]
• Ian Bishop, Pearl in Its Setting: A Critical Study of the Structure and Meaning of the Middle English Poem. Oxford: Blackwell, 1968. [Genre, especially allegory; idea of innocence; number symbolism.]
• Robert J. Blanch, "The Current State of Pearl Criticism." Chaucer Yearbook 3 (1996), 21-33.
• Robert J. Blanch, "Supplement to the Gawain-Poet: An Annotated Bibliography, 1978-85." Chaucer Review 25.4 (1991), 363-86.
• Michael Foley, "The Gawain-Poet: An Annotated Bibliography, 1978-85." Chaucer Review 23.3 (1989), 250-82.
• Robert J. Blanch and Julian N. Wasserman. From Pearl to Gawain: Forme to Fynisment. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1995. [Thematic study from standpoint of providential history; focus on miracles, language, role of narrator, covenants, iconography of the hand.]
• Theodore Bogodanos. Pearl, Image of the Ineffable: A Study in Medieval Poetic Symbolism. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1983. [Medieval symbolism and sign theory--e.g. Pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure.]
• John Bowers. "Pearl in Its Royal Setting: Ricardian Poetry Revisited." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 17 (1995), 111-55. [Reading Pearl in relation to Richard II's court; argues poem is consistently royalist, and imagery of poem reiterates Richard's regalian themes and images.]
• John Bowers. "The Politics of Pearl." Exemplaria 7 (1995), 419-41. [Parable of vineyard as exemplary of late fourteenth-century social concerns, especially unruly labour.]
• John Bowers. The Politics of Pearl: Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2001.
• Maria Bullon-Fernandez. "Be3onde þe Water: Courtly and Religious Desire in Pearl." Studies in Philology 91 (1994), 35-49. [Contrasts between religious and courtly desire; poetic play of erotic desire violates both categories.]
• Lawrence Clopper. "Pearl and the Consolation of Scripture." Viator 23 (1991), 231-45. [Poem as progressive meditative itinerary based on Augustine.]
• John Conley, ed. The Middle English Pearl: Critical Essays. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1955.
• Catherine S. Cox. "Pearl's 'Precios Pere': Gender, Language, and Difference." Chaucer Review 32.4 (1998), 337-90. [Gender binaries inform poem's poetics and drive its formations of transgressive desire, with feminine representing the plural, carnal, and literal.]
• Morton Donner. "Word Play and Word Form in Pearl." Chaucer Review 24 (1989), 166-82. [Variation in morphological form of link words as important component of poem's lexical play.]
• James W. Earl. "Saint Margaret and the Pearl Maiden." Modern Philology 70 (1972), 1-8. [Virgin martyr St. Margaret as source for the Pearl-maiden.]
• Rosalind Field. "The Heavenly Jerusalem in Pearl." Modern Language Review 81 (1986), 7-17. [Poem's uses of and divergence from biblical Apocalypse text; image of wounded lamb in Apocalypse MSS.]
• John Finlayson. "Pearl: Landscape and Vision." Studies in Philology 71 (1974), 314-43. [Description of landscape as objective correlative to narrator's spiritual understanding.]
• This listing will be supplemented soon.

Other Resources:

Note: I am still compiling a list of recommended journal articles and other useful texts. You should make use of the MLA Bibliography and Interlibrary Loan to research materials in this medium. You will also find it helpful to use the internet links on the resources page.