The poems of MS BL Cotton Nero A.x (hereafter Nero A.x; the poems are Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) are well known to scholars of Middle English literature, but the manuscript has often escaped notice as a signifying artifact. Nero A.x's relative neglect has partly to do with its humble make, which is said to contrast unfavorably with its elegant poems. Its twelve full-page illustrations, in particular, have been dismissed as clumsy and inferior to the poems they illustrate. But by isolating the manuscript's texts from their material and pictorial settings, critics overlook layers of meaning vital to the reception of these poems in their contemporary situation. Indeed, the uniqueness of the poems is matched by the uniqueness of the manuscript. Nero A.x is extremely small for a vernacular poetic codex, its slight size suggesting a private, self-studying use. Its unusual illustrations are the first of their kind in a 14th century English manuscript, soliciting a self-reflexive and contemplative experience from readers. Its material humility may speak to its intended uses, while also reflecting a spiritual aesthetic: humble matter encases a divine "soul." Text, image, and object together suggest a complex devotional artifact, rather than a simple literary one. By placing Nero A.x's facture, materiality, and illumination on a level with its texts, we experience this late-medieval artifact anew. Specifically, we encounter the manuscript as an interrogation of the late-medieval reading subject, a subject whose experience is refracted through hagiography, penance, and pilgrimage.
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