Mon mai longe liues wene,
Ac ofte him lieth the wrench.
Feir weder turneth ofte into reine
And wunderliche hit maketh his blench.
Tharuore mon, thu the bi-thench,
Al schal falewi thi grene,
Weilawei, nis king ne quene,
That ne schal drinche of deathes drench.
Mon, er thu falle of thi bench,
Thine sunne thu aquench.
(Lisle, “The Three Living and The Three Dead”)
Having revised the concept of childhood from the Antique period up to the later Middle Ages, with special attention paid to the opinion articulated by the Church on the same subject, having compared the persona of the Pearl-Maiden with her ‘contemporaries’, and finally, having found a possible parallel with the persona of the maiden and an antique topos, there is one more issue that is worth addressing. The topic of Death came up several times, especially when the works of the contemporaries of the Poet were scrutinized. However, it can be safely pointed out that there are hardly any works discussed in this paper where Death plays such a dominant role as it does in Pearl. Therefore, in order to get a more precise picture of the structure and traditions that are exploited in the poem, …show more content…
Obviously, this fact decided and formed the beliefs, thoughts and actions of these people. The question is how medieval people, especially that of the 13-14th centuries coped with the Inevitable. Since there are no clear notions articulated concerning life after death in the Bible, people were left to guess about their final destination. Up to 1254, when Pope Innocent IV accepted Purgatory as an official doctrine of the Church, the general conception regarding afterlife was that one could either end up in Heaven, provided he had led a life of a saint, but more probably, if he was a mere ‘human’ being, he would find himself in
Ac ofte him lieth the wrench.
Feir weder turneth ofte into reine
And wunderliche hit maketh his blench.
Tharuore mon, thu the bi-thench,
Al schal falewi thi grene,
Weilawei, nis king ne quene,
That ne schal drinche of deathes drench.
Mon, er thu falle of thi bench,
Thine sunne thu aquench.
(Lisle, “The Three Living and The Three Dead”)
Having revised the concept of childhood from the Antique period up to the later Middle Ages, with special attention paid to the opinion articulated by the Church on the same subject, having compared the persona of the Pearl-Maiden with her ‘contemporaries’, and finally, having found a possible parallel with the persona of the maiden and an antique topos, there is one more issue that is worth addressing. The topic of Death came up several times, especially when the works of the contemporaries of the Poet were scrutinized. However, it can be safely pointed out that there are hardly any works discussed in this paper where Death plays such a dominant role as it does in Pearl. Therefore, in order to get a more precise picture of the structure and traditions that are exploited in the poem, …show more content…
Obviously, this fact decided and formed the beliefs, thoughts and actions of these people. The question is how medieval people, especially that of the 13-14th centuries coped with the Inevitable. Since there are no clear notions articulated concerning life after death in the Bible, people were left to guess about their final destination. Up to 1254, when Pope Innocent IV accepted Purgatory as an official doctrine of the Church, the general conception regarding afterlife was that one could either end up in Heaven, provided he had led a life of a saint, but more probably, if he was a mere ‘human’ being, he would find himself in