Dr. Jonathan Juilfs

So beyond what a single pen could ever put down.

And yet I don't think he's disheartened by that.

I've encountered readers who have said to me,

Man, he promises all of this and then he denies us the vision at the end.

Oh, the opportunities are rich, and I certainly hope I won't step on exams with this.

I mentioned earlier the Middle English Pearl, which was actually...

I read Dante as an undergraduate and then did a project on the Middle English Pearl.

I think Pearl is one of the most exquisitely beautiful poems I've ever encountered in any language.

It's not a rival to Dante, it's a different kind of take on Dante, but I think it was through Pearl that I got connected with Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and with the Romance of the Rose.

And so I see like there's a whole nexus of texts that are just kind of interacting with one another in that space.

So I would highly recommend those.

For interested readers, Jane Beale, who's one of the great Pearl poet scholars right now, has published an edition with translation and excellent notes.

through Broadview Press, so you could look for that.

I got my teeth cut on Marie Boroff's translation through Yale University Press, and Marie was a star.

And she signed my copy of Pearl.

I had the good fortune to get to meet her at a lecture.

And when I told her my name was Jonathan Julf, she said, oh, an alliterative name.

And that's what she wrote in my text.

And I love that.

So I would recommend that.