Gawain Poet

late 14th century), or less commonly the "Pearl Poet",[3] is the name given to the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English.

Save for the last (found in BL-MS Harley 2250), all these works are known from a single surviving manuscript, the British Library holding 'Cotton MS' Nero A.x.

The poems show a tendency to refer to materials from the past (the Arthurian legends, stories from the Bible) rather than any new learning, so it is perhaps less possible to associate the poet with universities, monasteries or the court in London.

J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, after reviewing the allusions, style, and themes of Gawain and the Green Knight, concluded in 1925: He was a man of serious and devout mind, though not without humour; he had an interest in theology, and some knowledge of it, though an amateur knowledge perhaps, rather than a professional; he had Latin and French and was well enough read in French books, both romantic and instructive; but his home was in the West Midlands of England; so much his language shows, and his metre, and his scenery.

[9] The sophistication of the poet's literary style, and his references to pursuits such as heraldry and hunting, suggest a writer aiming at a cultured audience.

However, there have been claims that certain small debts can be detected in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Virgil and to Seneca the Younger, and it is highly likely that the poet was familiar with a wide range of Latin literature that was current among the educated class in the Middle Ages.

The British Library Cotton MS Nero A X is the only surviving Middle English manuscript collection consisting solely of alliterative poems.

To present the historical background of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and associated poems is ultimately a quest to find the anonymous poet.

Sir Robert Grosvenor, Sheriff of Chester was born c. 1342 at Hulme, Cheshire, England and is an appropriate reference-point in the investigation for the world of the poet.

Grosvenor's manor house at Hulme is only a few miles north of the area pin-pointed by dialectologists, on the uplands associated with the Green Chapel mentioned in the poem.

[12] A theory current in the early part of the 20th century held that a man called Huchoun ("little Hugh") may have authored the poems, having been credited with several works, including at least one known to be in the alliterative form, in the Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun.

As Cotton MS Nero A X contains the words "Hugo de" added in a later hand, its contents were identified with some of the works mentioned by Wyntoun.

[17] Richard Newton, some of whose occasional verse in the late fourteenth century has survived, was suggested as a candidate, based on perceived stylistic similarities of his work to parts of Sir Gawain.