The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript in Modern English Prose Translation:
Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

For students of Middle English, Andrew and Waldron’s The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript has been the key edition of the four Pearl poems (the best-known of which is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) for 30 years. A comprehensively revised edition was published in 2007 to ensure the continued dominance on medieval courses of the Andrew/Waldron edition.

Now, with the changing needs of today’s student in mind, the editors have produced for the first time a complete prose translation of the four poems.

•    The new prose translations of the poems are based faithfully on Andrew and Waldron’s new edition of The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript.



•    By using prose as opposed to verse the authors have ensured that the translations remain as close and accurate to the original as possible.



•    The prose translations are intended as a means of enhancing the understanding of these four superb but linguistically difficult poems, to help readers get to grips with the original texts.



•    Andrew and Waldron’s translations can also be used as a means of checking the accuracy of students’ own rendition of the originals.