Powell, Susan 2011, '"For ho is quene of cortaysye": the Assumption of the Virgin in Pearl and the Festial' , in: In Strange Countries: Middle English Literature and its Afterlife: Essays in Memory of J. J. Anderson , Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 76-95.

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Abstract

The relationships I will deal with in this chapter are those between the Pearl-Maiden and Jesus Christ, between the Pearl-maiden and the Virgin Mary, and between Christ and the Virgin Mary, not the relationship between the Pearl- maiden and the Dreamer which is more usually prioritised. I will consider the marriage of the Maiden to the Lamb and suggest connections with the enclosed world of female religious which may (for reasons which I will not hypothesise) have had some relevance to the Pearl-poet. From this I will suggest similarities between the Maiden and the Virgin, both essentially and in their relationship to the Lamb/Son. His relationship with them will lead into a brief discussion of a short lyric in one of two assumption sermons in a contemporaneous and extremely popular sermon collection, John Mirk’s Festial. The chapter will end with an appendix which provides a critical edition of both this lyric and another in the second assumption sermon.

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