THE PEARL. - An anonymous allegorical poem in alliterative verse, composed in the second half of the 14th century and included in the same manuscript that contains the famous Arthurian poem *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*, for which it is supposed that the author is the same.
P. is the author’s daughter, who died in childhood, and who appears to him, grown mature, wise, and blessed in Paradise. She describes to him the happiness of her state and urges him to cease weeping for her. He sees her across a river and attempts to reach her, but the vision vanishes and the poet awakens in the cemetery, resigned, however, to his sorrow. The little poem ranks among the most beautiful medieval English allegories and recalls the final cantos of Dante’s *Purgatorio*.