Publisher's Synopsis
From the introductory.
"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight" was published for the first time in Sir Fred. Madden's "Syr Gawayne, a collection of ancient romance-poems by Scottish and English authors, relating to that celebrated knight of the Round Table. London 1839. Printed for the Bannatyne Club." Prefixed to this edition is a description of the unique MS. Cott. Nero A x; in the same portion of which, and directly preceding our Sir Gawayne, are three other poems, written in the same hand and all (Madden ibid. p. 301) "most unquestionably composed by the author of the romance."
Morris edited these three poems, under the titles of the Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience, for the E. E. T. S., in 1864 (2nd ed. 1869): and in the same year, for the same society, reedited Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (2nd ed. likewise 1869). He agrees with Madden in attributing all four poems to one and the same author; alleging for his opinion similarity of dialect.
Prof. Trautmann in his Habilitationssft. Leipzig 1876, "Uber Verfasser und Entstehungszeit einiger allit. Gdte. des Altengl." agrees with Morris, while deeming insufficient the ground assigned by him for his opinion. He himself reaches the same conclusion by applying "the best tests we can have" - those of wort- und phrasen-gebrauch und versbau. The Pearl, not being written in alliteration, falls without the limits of his subject. But in his article "Der Dichter Huchown und seine Werke" (Anglia I, p. 118 - 120) he attributes the Pearl to the author of the other three poems, and enumerates the reasons as follows: -
I. 48 words rare or unknown in other poems and common to these 4. II. The similar treatment of the alliterative rhymes:
a, the frequent alliteration - wh: w. b, the frequent alliteration of the spiritus asper with the spiritus lenis. c, such alliterations as excused: "scape, expoune: speche." He gives two examples from the Pearl.
d, the frequent alliteration of combinations of 2 and 3 letters with each other (i.e. sp, cl, str, etc.), three in a line.
Ground I. is not conclusive, because if we assume (as we have the right to assume, cf. Morris 2nd ed. of Allit. Poems, preface p. ix, note) another poet writing in precisely the same dialect, he would naturally make use of words which must have been common to that section of the country.
Ground II. does not seem to me entirely convincing, because "a" and "b" are peculiarities which the Pearl shares with William of Palerne (cf. Trautmann Ub. Verf. u. Entst. p. 14); and "d" is found not only in Gaw. Cl. and Pat., but also, in a less degree, in Mort Arthure; and, to a much greater extent, in the Alexander Fragments.
Trautmann is satisfied here with much lighter evidence than in the case of the poem of Gawain (cf. Ub. Verf. u. Entst.). Yet, apart from the complete proof he himself brings, there was, as I shall point out later for another purpose, an intimate connection between moral and descriptive passages of Gaw. and Cl.; while between the Pearl and the other poems there is no such link. It is separated from them by its versification; by the blending of allegory and personal feeling; by the different use too of the Bible, insomuch as while Cl. and Pat. are merely founded upon it, the author of the Pearl transports himself into the scenes in Revelations "which he describes."
