Pearl: A New Verse Translation - Simon Armitage

nOne of our most ingenious interpreters of Middle English, Oxford Professor of Poetry Simon Armitage is celebrated for his compulsively readable translations New York Times Book Review). A perfect complement to his historic translation ofPearlthought to be by the same anonymous author and housed in the same original fourteenth-century manuscript. Honoring the rhythms and alliterative music of the original, Armitage s virtuosic translation describes a man mourning the loss of his Pearl something that has slipped away.

What follows is a tense, fascinating, and tender dialogue weaving through the throes of grief toward divine redemption. Intricate and endlessly connected, Armitage s lyrical translation is a circular and perfected whole, much like the pearl itself.