| Summary: | The following thesis, “Genre and Audience Response in the
Middle English Pearl”, examines the problematic nature of
generic definition of the Middle English poem Pearl. The
anonymous poem, dating from the late 14th Century, concerns a
"jueler" who has lost a precious pearl and given in to
unseemly grief, denying his faith. In a dreamlike vision, he
is led through debates by a mysterious Pearl Maiden who shows
him the errors he has committed; he is privileged to a
heavenly apparition of the heavenly Jerusalem and its divine
inhabitants; finally, he is cast from the vision, reconciled
to his loss and his faith.
Pearl has resisted easy generic categorization. In this
thesis, I argue that the indeterminability of the poem's genre
is deliberate. Genre carries meaning; a reader, recognizing
familiar generic aspects, expects the poem to progress in a
certain manner. The poet carefully chooses elements of many
familiar genres in order to manipulate the audience's
reactions at crucial points in the poem. With these
manipulations, the poet succeeds in making the experience of
the poem personal for the reader, not merely literary.
I begin my argument by postulating the existence of a
generic tradition, a historically viewed body of works; genre
is the synchronic cross-section of the generic tradition.
Following Jauss, I propose that generic tradition shapes the
expectations of a reader, and thus shapes the reader's
response to a text. I then look at the various generic
traditions which Pearl draws from: allegory and elegy, the
consolatio, debate poetry, the dream vision, and the visual
arts. Using a survey of critical literature and comparisons
to other contemporary texts where applicable, I demonstrate
how Pearl draws from the various traditions, and where it
differs. I then examine the significance of the variations
from the generic tradition to the reader's response to the
poem. To conclude, I discuss the role of the retrospective
look to the reader's understanding of the poem and to the
reception and continuation of the generic tradition.
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