 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2016) |
| St Erkenwald | |
|---|---|
| by ? The Pearl Poet | |
&sq=&lang=&file=File:St_Alban%27s_Abbey_IMG_2742_(28883447381).jpg) Saint Erkenwald, statue in St Albans Cathedral | |
| First published in | Mid to late 15th century |
| Country | England |
| Language | Middle English |
| Subject(s) | Theology and statecraft |
| Genre(s) | alliterative verse |
| Meter | or |
St Erkenwald is a fourteenth-century alliterative poem in Middle English, perhaps composed in the late 1380s or early 1390s.[1][2] It has sometimes been attributed, owing to the Cheshire/Shropshire[3]/Staffordshire Dialect in which it is written, to the Pearl poet who probably wrote the poems Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.[4][5]
St Erkenwald imagines an encounter in the seventh century between the historical Erkenwald, Bishop of London 675 to 693, and a corpse from an even earlier period, the period before the Roman conquest of Britain. The poem's themes revolve around the complex history of Britain and England, and the possibility in fourteenth-century Christian thought of the salvation of virtuous pagans.
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- ^ Frank Grady, "St. Erkenwald and the Merciless Parliament", Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), pp. 179–211.
- ^ Ruth Nissé, "'A Coroun Ful Rich': The Rule of History in St. Erkenwald", English Literary History 65 (1998), pp. 277–95.
- ^ Austin, Sue (23 February 2024). "Shropshire Day: Natural beauty and culture help county celebrate its own patron saint's day". www.shropshirestar.com. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
- ^ Marie Borroff, "Narrative Artistry in St. Erkenwald and the Gawain-Group: The Case for Common Authorship Reconsidered", Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006), pp. 41–76 (arguing for common authorship).
- ^ Larry Benson, "The Authorship of St. Erkenwald", Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64 (1965), pp. 393–405 (arguing against common authorship).