Page "Pearl Poet" Paragraph 5

Any other information must be deduced from the poems ' themes, as there is neither a definite authorial attribution within them nor any ' tradition ' as to the author's identitity ( as with Langland and Piers Plowman ).

The poet would seem to be exceptionally conversant with learning, shows a deep knowledge of technical vocabulary about hunting and the court, vividly describes the landscape of the region, and has an interest in poverty as a Christian virtue.

However, the writer of the Cotton Nero A. x poems never refers to contemporary scholarship as Chaucer, for example, does ; the poems show much more of a tendency to refer to materials from the past ( the Arthurian legends, stories from the Bible ) than any new learning, so it is perhaps less possible to associate him or her with the universities, monasteries, or the court in London.

Despite this, the Pearl Poet must have been educated and probably of a certain social standing, perhaps a member of a family of landed gentry.

J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V.

Gordon, after reviewing the allusions, style, and themes of Gawain and the Green Knight, concluded in 1925: