A dream, as we conceive of it in modern thought, is markedly different from the dreams that appear in Middle English dream vision poetry. Where today we might generally think of one's dreams as an abstract and introspective reflection of individual and personal psychology, the dream in the poet Gawain's Pearl works differently. As A. C. Spearing explains, "By the Middle Ages, the explicitly visionary element in Scripture must have provided an important justification for a literature of dreams and visions," implying that the dream is not just a reflection of a man's psychology, but that the dream, like the Bible, offers lessons or understanding to its readers. Furthermore, the dream realm that the dreamer enters is completely unknown and alien to him, and the resulting narrative is an unstable one, which he pieces together to try to understand his experience himself. If we consider “narrative” as the way in which experiences are made sense of in literature and communicated to readers, I will argue that Pearl's readers are not asked to give up narrative entirely, but are instead asked to trust one that is spontaneous and perhaps unreliable, as they enter the afterlife of unfamiliar dreams together with the narrator, sharing with him the same "familiar world of everyday values ​​and assumptions." The "bulk of the poem", as Ad Putter claims, is "the debate between the Dreamer and the Pearly Maiden", and it is the dreamer's account of this that highlights his ongoing misunderstandings about the nature of loss and afterlife, unmasking the limits of earthly knowledge and the body. As mortals, the readers operate on the same level as the dreamer, and his narrative is an attempt at retrospective understanding of what the Pearl is attempting to divulge. This process is one that continually goes on, only to fail when the dreamer physically crosses a boundary and wakes up. Such a narrative constitutes the reader's sense of incompleteness and frustration at the end of the poem, wishing, like the dreamer, that he could know or see more, but realizing through his reflective errors and limitations why he is so, enhanced by an understanding of God's will . operations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIt becomes clear to readers that it is at the moment when the dreamer falls asleep and the land is left behind that they are guided through an uncertain narrator's poem through an unfamiliar landscape: "In auenture ther meruaylez meuen./I ne wyste in bis worlde quere bat hit wace".[64-5] The word "auenture" in use here has been the subject of much scholarly discussion, since in Middle English usage it seems more closely related to the notion of accident or chance rather than the quest or epic journey as we would define it today. From the beginning of the poem, then, this word signals that the narrator's dream is not the ordinary kind that readers may experience every night, but a dream that readers are as lucky to have stumbled upon as the dreamer; a dream of promised importance. This impression is made even clearer by the dreamer's navigation through the unknown landscape of his dream, which, imitating the experience of earthly dreams, begins very slowly, as the dreamer becomes absorbed in the visual beauty that surrounds him. He takes from line 75, when he notices the woods, 'holtewodez', to line 98 to actually reach them, 'bat frith ber Fortne forward me ferez', forcing readers to share his dreamlike meandering. What is also particularly interesting about this distance is the syntactic change it produces, from 'holtewodez' to 'fryth'.While "fryth" is translated as "wood" by both Casey Finch and the Middle English Dictionary, "holtewodez" translates slightly differently in both to "forest". This difference, even if subtle, instigates the reader's distrust towards the dreamer's narrative since what he perceives does not remain stable. The stanza following line 98 is doubly confusing in its sense of movement, in which the dreamer describes first being led "out" [98] by fortune, then venturing forward, "I welke ay away in wely wyse",[ 101] and finally, wandering towards the river, "I want to go to the shore".[107] What becomes clear from this linguistic confusion is that both the narrator and the readers who follow him are located in a realm totally separate from the earth, and in the little stumbles of the dreamer's narrative, the reader is pushed towards an expectation that the senses and mortal perceptions cannot. you have to trust the experience of vision. Having said this, however, even the initial part of the story is a bit misleading in suggesting that the dreamer, by falling asleep, leaves his physical body behind: space;/My body on balke ber bod'.[61-2] Here, the body and spirit are also separated by separate lines, with the word 'jumped' implying abrupt and rapid movement. Nonetheless, it becomes clear when the dreamer attempts to describe his vision that his physical limitations cannot be shaken off, preventing both him and the readers from full access to the landscape: "More of wele watz in bat wyse/ ben I cowbe telle bag I tom hade,/For vrbely herte my3t not suffyse/To be tenbe dole of bo gladnez glade.'[133-6] The stanza that begins with these lines creates a linear disappointment, where the dreamer's narration offers a brief glimpse the otherworldly landscape, “More of wele watz in bat wyse,” only in the next line to falter, “ben I cobe tele bag I tom hade,” realizing he is unable to communicate his experience This occurs again a couple of lines later, when the dreamer sees heaven, "Forby I bobt bat paradise"[137], then states that it is out of reach, "ouer gayn bo bonkez brade".[138] work of the poet Gawain, comments that they "attempt to make their experiences intelligible to themselves by putting them together in ways which they find convincing but which also prove wholly or partially inadequate". This seems to be what is happening to the dreamer here, as he struggles to make sense of his experience through narrative, thus making it even more difficult for readers to make sense of it. As already mentioned, we readers soon learn that this incomplete access to the landscape of vision is due to the physical limitations of the dreamer, who recognizes his "vrbely herte"[135] as the culprit, so he is prevented from crossing the river. out of mortal fear, «for wo ber welez so wynne wore».[154] It is the dreamer's unshakable mortality that betrays him and makes him capable of only partially telling readers. Where the dreamer cannot be blamed for mere habitation in a mortal body, misunderstandings arise from sources other than this simply. The dreamer presents us with an interaction between him and the Pearl in which she attempts to explain to him the workings of heaven, while he, in Davis's words, "attempts to reach an understanding of what the pearl now represents to him." This understanding or apprehension is limited to both the dreamer and the reader not only by the body, but also by earthly knowledge and logic. As Casey Finch points out in his introduction to the poem, "the celestial order […] is undoubtedly structured like the mundane," a fact that makes understanding difficult for the dreamer in several parts of the poem, creating even more narrative "journeys" . . For example, the Pearl tells the dreamer that she has been hired as queenof the Lamb among many others, and the dreamer's earthly hierarchical understanding makes this almost impossible to understand: 'bou lyded not two ber in our bede […] Bot a queen! – The goal is to make an appointment.' The dreamer, attached to his earthly logic, cannot believe that Pearl, who was only two years old on earth, could perhaps have achieved the status of queen. Since the readers share the same deadly logic as the dreamer, it is not difficult to empathize and share his confusion and difficulty in understanding, once again creating the feeling that the narrators, and therefore the readers, are not quite grasping something important . However, there are, as I argue, levels to which the dreamer's narration actually pushes the reader into a fuller (though not complete) understanding of the vision that the narrator himself cannot achieve. Although, as I have argued, the dreamer's recounting of his experience is the vehicle of understanding for readers, a point of separation arises where the dreamer feels pangs of pain where readers do not. At the beginning of the poem the Pearl has already been lost; readers have no emotional investment or attachment to Pearl as a figure on earth, which the dreamer clearly does. This fact divides the understanding where the dreamer cannot willingly accept that his Pearl continues to live in the kingdom of heaven, fixated on his absence from the earth: 'Sir, be haf your tale mysente, / To say your perle is al awaye , / bat is in cofer so comly clente'.[257-9] The Pearl explains that although she no longer exists on earth, her spirit continues to live in the kingdom of heaven, which the dreamer does not seem to accept due to his feelings of personal loss. This explanation, however, is nothing new to readers who are likely familiar with the Christian doctrine that eternal life is given in heaven, so it is at this point that readers are able to loosen their ties to the narrator and see his misunderstanding. as a product of pain. Furthermore, by the time the dreamer is about to attempt to cross the river, the readers are already aware that it is a misguided action for this reason, and the dreamer's narrative changes slightly to emphasize his mistake: "I bobt bat nobyng mybt me dere" /To fech me bur and take me halte/And to start in be strem schulde non me stere'.[1157-9] Although the dreamer continued to narrate in a retrospective, it is at this point that total clarity comes forward where it has not yet been seen. been evident before. The dreamer expresses regret for his stupidity, 'bobt bat nobyng mybt me dere' understanding in memory the mistake he made in crossing this physical boundary. As the narrator acknowledges this transgression, the reader is pushed to understand more about why he wakes up than himself. Until the end of his tale, he misunderstands the principles and laws of the Kingdom of Heaven, for example, pondering which pearl seems happier, "To know how to be happier than chere",[1108] a linguistic failure to see all the queens of the 'Lamb are the same. Still attached to the narrator's vehicle, readers are prevented from going further into the vision when the narrator wakes up. However, it is the lack of personal pain that clouds judgment that allows them to see and understand a little further and more clearly than the dreamer can, although ultimately it is clear, as Ad Putter expressed, "Heaven in Pearl […] proves inaccessible to human reason,” whether it concerns the narrator or the case of the readers. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay In Pearl, the dreamer attempts through.’[1198]