Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written about the same time as the Canterbury Tales and the Battle of Maldon, is a courtly romance and the finest Arthurian romance in English.

Before discussing this story alone, look at the similarities between Beowulf and Sir Gawain.

Both heroes belong to a ruling military class

Both warriors are courageous

Both are zealous for their personal honor

Both risk their lives for the honor of their liege lords and others

Both of their stories include magic as an element

But there are also differences.

Beowulf makes a boastful speech about his accomplishments whereas Gawain lives by a code of humility and courtesy

Beowulf is basically a pagan story to which Christian values have been added.  Sir Gawain serves his Heavenly Lord as well as an earthly one.

Beowulf is a sad poem, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is subtly comic.

In Beowulf the hero dies, but Sir Gawain is (possibly) redeemed after his failure.

Beowulf speaks of his glories in past battles, but the poet who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight glosses over Gawain's past battles with men and monsters as the action shifts from the battlefield to the bedroom.

One interesting note about this story is that Edward III evidently knew the story.  He founded the ORDER of the GARTER, which is still to this day the oldest, highest order of knighthood in Great Britain.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight probably composed c. 1375-1400. One surviving manuscript, containing three other poems, thought to be by same author (Pearl, Patience, and Purity).

Written in the dialect of the NW Midlands (south Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire; the area Gawain ends up in after his journey north).

Alliterative verse of the poem

Its use of the "bob" and "wheel"

Medieval Romance

o Stories of adventure and love (between aristocratic characters)

o Often quests with Christian meaning

o Sort of like the Crusades but with a better outcome

o Often contain magical and supernatural elements

o Chief Romance—the Arthur Tales

The historical Arthur was probably a sixth century resistance fighter against the Saxon invaders.

The Arthur of romance is created in effect by Welsh priest Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regem Britanniae (early 12th century).

From the 12th century onwards, lengthy cycles of Arthurian romances are written, first of all in France, later in England. (Later Layamon translates some of these French (source of the term romance) tales into Middle English alliterative verse.)

Gawain as nephew of Arthur becomes representative of both his kinsman and the Round Table in taking up the Green Knight's challenge.

Anglo-Norman times

Recall roughly three periods: Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Late Medieval (14^th and 15^th Centuries)

Norman Invasion: 1066

o William of Norman aka William the Conqueror defeats Harold at the Battle of Hastings

o Normans (contraction for Norsemen) were Germanic invaders who took over the north of France and adopted the language

o Brought to England the French language

o England an interesting mix of languages

§ Latin: language of church and learning

§ French: language of court (changed by intermarriage)

§ Old/Middle English: native language

§ Celtic languages: still spoken in Ireland, Cornwall, Wales

o Brought to England feudalism

Feudalism

o very hierarchical system

o King makes gifts of land to lords (his retainers/knights)

o Lords pay king taxes and tributes (gifts)

o Lords own land; allow free peasants to work the land

o Free peasants pay lords rents, fees (for grinding grain for example), etc.

o Villeins (essentially slaves) employed by free peasants as laborers; essentially owned by the lord (they came with the land)

o No Wages (until Black Death created a labor shortage)

Knights essentially the law of the land; or at least the enforcers of law

By the 12^th and 13^th Century

o Economics becomes more and more important requiring more lay (non-church) people in government to run it

o Kingdom increases in size (primarily through conquest—Edward Longshanks, aka Edward I, aka "Hammer of the Scots")

o Rule of Law required to ensure smooth operation of an ever-increasing kingdom. Specifically, Henry II codifies English common law

§ Jury trials to determine guilt

§ King’s judges decided punishment

§ Townspeople took turns as constables

§ Eventually Magna Carta (1215)

o These Reforms needed because

§ Churches/monasteries employed gangs of thugs to collect rents (the church was by far the largest landowner)—these gangs were made up of monks

§ Highwaymen

§ Knights were their own law

§ Punishments?

· forger had his hand removed

· accused thief thrown in pond (floats=guilty, etc.)

· beggar—three days in the stocks

· regicide—(of James I of Scotland): crowned with red hot crown and flesh pinched off with red-hot pincers

· liar—jailed for a year; every three months displayed in the market with a sign "False Liar"

· found a hawk belonging to a lord and did not report it—the hawk shall be fed on six ounces of flesh cut from the peasant’s chest

· scold—for publicly scolding her husband a woman was sentenced to be fitted with a head cage (called a brank) which had a metal rod that held down her tongue; she then had to be paraded through the town and be mocked; the brank was last used in 1846!

By the Fourteenth Century

o Tough times

§ 1303—Black Sea froze over; start of the mini-Ice Age which lasted into the 17^th century

§ 1337-1453—The Hundred Years War with France (which lasted 116 years—a Jeopardy trick question)

§ 1348—First of the serious plagues

§ 1381—Peasants Revolt

o Plague changed feudal system

§ by driving up wages

§ didn’t know what caused it; blamed the French

§ Causes?

· drinking from poisoned wells

· looking at a sick person

· breathing bad air

§ Remedies?

· breathing sweetened smoke (herbs on a fire)

· sitting in a sewer—bad sewer air drove off bad plague air

· eating arsenic—oops!

· blood-letting

· shaving a live chicken’s bottom and strapping it to the plague sore

· flogging yourself as you marched from town to town

· killing all the cats—oops!

o By the time of the writing of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the power of knights was on the decline—in other words, again the poet is looking back at the past in a time of tremendous change

Represented meritocracy (of sorts)

o Knight proves his worth through brave deeds and nobility of character not just nobility of birth

Chivalry or codes of conduct

o originally how to train young knights to fight

o to hunt

o to govern his own vassals

o ultimately led to courtly ideal of the true knight

§ courageous and skillful in war

§ generous

§ pious

§ courteous

§ and eventually champion of the weak

Evolved into Courtly Love

o Adoration and respect of gallant and courageous knight for a beautiful, intelligent noblewoman who remains pure, chaste and unattainable

o He performs noble deeds for her (she ignores him or cannot reciprocate)

o He suffers terribly but knows he cannot consummate his love without destroying the object of his desire—her purity and his respect

o He keeps secret his love; wears her scarf or glove into battle

o She is often married—pointing out the incompatibility between love and marriage

o Lover welcomes suffering because it ennobles him and spurs him on to great things

o

The reality for women

o Love, honor and obey

o Women were property (of fathers, then husbands, then sons)

o If a wife or daughter disobeyed, she was beaten: "A horse whether good or bad, needs a lord and master—and sometimes a stick." Or, as the priest Robert d’Abrissel said, "A woman is a witch, a snake, a plague, a rat, a rash, a poison, a burning flame and an assistant of the Devil"

A hero sets out on a quest

o Is tested

§ Not just strength and courage, but character and courtliness

o Meets up with versions of himself (self-discovery)

o Or meets up with the "other" which helps him to or hinders him from realizing his goal

Hero returns changed

Hero leaves the world he knows

o Enters an unknown, mysterious world

§ Is forced to confront some crisis

· The crisis reveals something about the hero

§ The hero acquires knowledge about self or world rendering it less unknown, mysterious

o Hero returns a changed man

Both hero and society are altered—improved or perhaps compromised by these events

 

Romance of the Past (49ff)

Nature

o Seasons, cycles, time

§ Christmas (rebirth, but winter death)

§ Time told by religious days (Michaelmas, All Hallows’ Day, etc.)

o Natural imagery of seasons at first pleasant (506-520); followed by moral lesson (521-530)

o Dangerous landscape outside Camelot

§ Opposes him (713ff)

§ fearsome and wild (741ff)

Supernatural Visitor (136ff)—he’s all green

o Why green?

§ Gawain’s colors are gold and red (see lines 590-669). Gold is a symbol for perfection. Red is symbolic of courage, love, and passion, the very qualities Gawain will have tested.

o Holly branch is green and red (203ff), but also an ax

o Beheading Game (273, 285ff)

o Chops his head off, but ... (430)

Courtly behavior

o Mocks Arthur’s court (309ff)

o Gawain humbly intervenes (343ff)

o Gawain’s shield

o Court critical of Arthur for creating the situation that leads to Gawain’s departure (673)

o Gawain immediately recognized as superior (814ff)

Religion

o Interrupted feast is Christmas

o Time marked by church calendar

o Gawain’s daily life—his shield, saying "Our Father" and "Ave Maria", crossing himself, attending mass, and so on

o The Pentangle

§ an ancient Druidic symbol of safety and perfection which gives power over spirits

§ The text, however, gives the Christian meaning for the symbol—the "fives" (senses, fingers, wounds, joys (of Mary), and knightly virtues)

o Prays for help and the castle appears (763ff)

o Gawain compared to Christ (867ff)

Women

o Lady appears (940ff)

o Crone and lady compared

o Gawain behaves chivalrously (970ff)

Quest

o Contractual language: our contract (378, 393)

§ Green Knight’s charge: "Therefore come, or be counted a recreant knight"

§ recreant means both "cowardly" and "unfaithful to duty or allegiance"

o Journeys alone (6983, 695, 696, etc.)

o Truth/Troth—Gawain announces his quest (1050ff); to seek the truth but also to fulfill his promise

§ Gawain swears allegiance to host

§ Host holds him to it (more contractual language) (1089ff)

§ Swear to exchange gifts

Nature, women

More Colors

o Blue is the color of fidelity. Notice that Gawain wears a blue robe the last night when he meets the host. He has not been unfaithful with the host’s wife; however, he HAS taken the belt.

The Hunt

o The deer is the first animal hunted by the host. The deer symbolizes politeness, wisdom, tact, quickness to know, and adroitness in avoiding embarrassing situations. (Note the irony: while the host is out hunting "deer," his "dear" is at home hunting Gawain!) Notice how Gawain takes on the qualities of the deer as the woman pursues him: he is polite, but tactful, knowledgeable about what she is up to, but adroit at avoiding the embarrassing situation. The woman is also polite, tactful, and adroit at tempting Gawain.

o The boar is the animal hunted by the host on the second day. The boar is a symbol of boldness and ferocity in combat. Notice how Gawain’s behavior compares to the boar: he is bold the second day, meeting her at once, and, although she makes her purpose very clear (see lines1525-1534 and 1549-1550), he maintains his strength and purpose. She also resembles the boar: she is bolder the second day, pinning him to the bed with her arms and being more blunt about her purpose.

o The third day, the host hunts the fox. The fox is wily, cunning, tricky, and duplicative (says one thing, means another). Although the woman tries all her feminine wiles to coax Gawain into bed with her (see lines 1770-1774), he cunningly avoids her plan and craftily answers her so as not to encourage her or offend her. Notice that the woman is also wily and crafty on the third day. She is very tricky, employing the sash finally to tempt Gawain.

the Chapel/Hermitage belief that hermits were often equivalent to priests, living alone in the woods much like monks. This motif is seen at the end of the story when the Green Knight takes on the role of hermit and Confessor, hearing Gawain’s confession, bestowing penance (the nick on his neck and the retelling of the story of the belt), and absolving him of his sin (lines 2385-2399). The story also ends with a warning against the wiles of women (lines 2412-28), a comparison of the Green Knight to Satan (lines 2477-8; compare 1 Peter 5:8), a statement of the sinfulness of all men and the redemptive purpose of Christ in the last wheel (lines 2527-2530), and the Latin motto of the Order of the Garter founded in honor of Gawain (line 2531 and footnote).