The Broken Moon: Lunar Semiotics in Ancrene Wisse and Pearl

ABSTRACT In the literature of medieval Christian Europe, the moon often signifies inconstancy, brokenness, and limitation. Painful wounds, attachments, deficiencies, mirages—all become written on the moon’s body. No clearer is this than in two Middle English texts: the prose Ancrene Wisse and the alliterative poem Pearl, works rarely studied alongside one another but which engage in a powerful lunar dialogue. In both texts, the moon signifies the changeability of life on earth, the loss or woundedness born from such mutability, and devotional deficiency. Such signification is underpinned by Scripture, particularly in vital references from Revelation. But through eucharistic emphases in Pearl, the moon also gestures towards the fullness and stability of communion. Readings of the moon in Ancrene Wisse and Pearl may be further enhanced by touching on a Latin analogue in the recorded visions of Juliana of Cornillon (ca. 1192/93–1258), another text with eucharistic devotion at its core.