What is this?
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You can find his tale here.
Chaucer’s Knight is generally thought of by scholars to be an experienced and professional soldier, motivated by religious ideals. Though it’s possible to read the profile ironically (and many have; the word ‘worthy’ is repeated 5 times, and his rugged appearance can be interpreted to indicate a mercenary dog of war), the prevailing view is that he’s a corrective to the blingy/morally dubious knights of previous Mediaeval Estates Satires.
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The gravedigger chooses a mock-official title for his colleague: “goodman delver.” It’s the equivalent of calling him Mr. Gravedigger. The phrase may also refer to the First Clown’s delving into the moral justification of the deceased.
This may well be a reference to John Ball’s rhyme about social status:
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Much of the rest of the scene is about how death “levels” social status: as in the first family, there are no distinctions between gentleman and peasant in the graveyard.
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“Basso” is usually thought to mean ‘messenger’, although it’s not listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. IT’S NOT IN THE DICTIONARY Y'ALL.
Poetry Genius despairs.
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Mauritania, in north-west Africa, was famous in medieval times for its horses. Bajazeth’s posse are ridin' dirty.
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The Spartans were known for their physical endurance, ‘laconic’ speech (from the name of the region where Sparta was, Laconia), and chaste women. The Broken Heart focuses particularly on the last of those three – as do a lot of Ford’s plays. It’s set at the end of a war with Messene, probably one of two long wars fought in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.
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Pearl joins its stanzas together with concatenation: a key word or phrase links the last line of each stanza with the first line of the next. Often the poet uses concatenation to make a witty pun. Here, “withouten spot” literally means “without a blemish”, but in the next line “spot” comes to mean “place”. Kinda clever, huh?
In Pearl and much other Christian poetry of the time, physical ‘spots’ or imperfections symbolise the spiritual imperfection of sin. The ‘Pearl-maiden’ who shows up later in the poem is clean from sin, and the description of the pearl here anticipates that.
Spot the Dog
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E.K. is trolling. The Muses were in fact the daughters of Memory – or Mnemosyne – and Zeus, king of the gods. Apollo does get a look-in: he’s generally considered the leader of the Muses, since he’s the Greek god of poetry and music.
Ay watz Arthur þe hendest, as I haf herde telle. The Pearl Poet – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Passus I)
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But of all the kings of Britain that lived here,
I’ve heard it said that Arthur was the noblest.
In Medieval romance, the mythical King Arthur was seen as the model that everyone else should follow. The poet sneaks in a little “as I haf herde telle” here, though, because the picture of Arthur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is hardly perfect.
This particular version of Arthur (from the BBC’s Merlin show) is a good example of his role as archetypal king- Both the version of Arthur depicted above and the version of Arthur depicted in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are seen as the noblest of all kings, but they do have their own faults as well- arrogance and impulsiveness, for example.
Bot mon most I algate mynn hym to bene,
And þat þe myriest in his muckel þat myȝt ride; The Pearl Poet – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Passus I)
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I think he could have been a half-giant on earth,
But all the same I reckon he was a man -
And the finest of his size that could ride a horse.
One of the key questions about the Green Knight is whether he’s real or magical, human or ‘etayn’ (giant). He’s huge – but so is this guy:
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By referring to her-/himself as an “ant”, the poet invites comparison with one of these fellas:
#JOKES.
This is just an archaic spelling of the word “And”.
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