Pearl: A Translation Book

Jane Draycott's translation of Pearl reissued as a Carcanet Classic. In the years since it was first published in 2011, Jane Draycott's translation of the medieval English poem Pearl has been recognised as a classic. David Morley declared in Poetry Review, `The language is marvellously modulated yet stirringly wild. Draycott has carried over into our tamer, tired world a strong, strange sense of how original, gorgeous and natural this old poem can be.' In the Times Literary Supplement Lachlan Mackinnin wrote, `Draycott's version is compellingly human.' It is appropriate, given the delicacy of language and theme, that this should be the first major translation prepared by a woman. In a dream landscape radiant with jewels, a father sees his lost daughter on the far bank of a river: `my pearl, my girl'. One of the great treasures of the British Library, the fourteenth-century poem Pearl is a work of poetic brilliance. Its account of loss and consolation retains its force across six centuries.Read More