Day 4 – Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight
“The masterpiece of alliterative poetry.”
“The finest Arthurian romance in English.”
This is an epic but it is also
Chivalric romance
 According to M. H. Abrams Dictionary of Literary Terms,
Chivalric Romance has these features:
 A courtly and chivalric age (not wartime) is the setting
 Highly developed manners and civility
 Standard plot: quest by single knight to gain a lady’s favor
 Tournaments, dragons, monsters
 Chivalric ideals of courage, loyalty, honor, mercifulness to an
opponent, and elaborate manners
 Wonders and marvels, including supernatural events (magic,
spells, and enchantments)
Analyze according to genre
 Chivalric Romance – Do you see Sir Gawain as
entirely different from Beowulf or does it have some
similarities?
 Look at definitions of the two.
 “Epic: long verse narrative on a serious subject, told
in a formal and elevated style, and centered on a
heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions
depend a tribe, nation, or the human race” (Abrams)
8 characteristics of epic
 M. H. Abrams: A Glossary of Literary Terms
Action involves superhuman deeds in battle
Gods and other supernatural beings take a part
Poem itself is a ceremonial performance
Narrator begins by stating his argument, invokes a
muse, then addresses the epic question
 Starts in medias res
 Catalogues of principal characters
 Setting is ample, and may be worldwide
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Sir Gawain is an actual
book
 The text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Tiny book
Illuminated manuscript with 4 illustrations
Fitts – disagreement about how many sections there
are
Three illustrations
 The Beheading
The Seduction
What is this?
Poetry
 Alliterative verse
 Bob (1 stress)
 Wheel (four rhymed lines of 3 stresses each)
 “The Pearl Poet”: Same poet as Pearl, Patience,
Purity, writing in West Midlands at the same time
as Chaucer, but not really in Middle English. He
uses an antiquated style to make his subject seem
more serious and “higher.”
What can you see about Arthur and the knights of the
Round Table?
What is the season of the
year?
Why does Sir Gawain step forward and not somebody else, like
Sir Lancelot?
Alain Renoir’s cinematographic theory of the writing of the beheading. “close
reading”
Also see Monty Python and the Holy Grail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXY9TuuwyL8&feature=fvsr
Mythological/
Anthropological
 Anthropological view of the tale so far?
 Picture of “Green Man”
 Sir Gawain as associated with Oaks
 Also Sir Gawain as associated with May Day and
the May Pole
Story as fertility myth,
ritual
 In European spring festivals, maypoles were set up to
represent sacred trees, and a sacred marriage was enacted
between a May Queen—a descendant of countless fertility
goddesses reaching back to the Neolithic and the
SumerianInanna— and a companion known as the Green Man,
himself a descendant of all those ancient fertility heroes such
as Dumuzi, Attis, and Adonis, many of whom were associated
with sacred trees. A later relative of the Green Man was the
Green Knight in the Middle English romance of Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight, in which the theme of decapitation suggests
the ancient ritual of fertile sacrifice for the good of humanity, a
process reenacted in the Christian story of Jesus, who died on
the “tree”-cross and was resurrected in the spring,
symbolizing a new spiritual fertility.
Dr. Freud or Dr. Jung?
 Psychological view of the tale so far?
 What if you were doing a Freudian reading?
 A Jungian reading?
 In any case, the poem is very humanistic. Gawain’s
“only fault is that he loves his life too much.” The
poem is about a good man choosing between right
and wrong.
Questions as you keep
reading
 Which court is more real? Arthur’s or Haut desert?
 What should Gawain do with the Lady?
 What is the meaning of green?
 What kind of king is Arthur?
 What do the animals mean?
Anti-French?
 How you would do a New Historical view?
 Some argue that there is an anti-French theme
represented by Arthur’s court. This is due to the
100 Years War. So French poetry and structure
were thrust aside. This is one argument for the
alliterative revival – an endeavor to find literary
independence from France.
Values?
 What values do you see as significant to Sir
Gawain?
 From what you know of the Round Table, what
values were most significant?
Pentangle
 “The poem describes Gawain's armor in detail. He carries a
red shield that has a pentangle painted on its front. The
pentangle is a token of truth. Each of the five points are linked
and locked with the next, forming what is called the endless
knot. The pentangle is a symbol that Gawain is faultless in his
five senses, never found to fail in his five fingers, faithful to the
five wounds that Christ received on the cross, strengthened by
the five joys that the Virgin Mary had in Jesus (The
Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, Ascension, and
Assumption), and possesses generosity, courtesy, brotherly
love, pure mind and manners, and compassion most precious.
The inside of the shield is adorned with an image of the Virgin
Mary to make sure that Gawain never loses heart.” (Sir
Gawain Room)
Dark Ages?
 Sir Gawain and the Canterbury Tales were written
at a time of transition. The Gawain/ Pearl poet
looks backwards to courtly love but Chaucer looks
forward to the Renaissance and humanism.
 Neither book (unlike Dante’s Divine Comedy) was
focused on heaven. The rewards, punishments,
conflicts, etc. were based in this world. The focus is
on human frailty and human greatness. There is
sympathy for the human condition.
Chivalric ideal
 Loyalty to God, King, Lady (remember loyalty from
Beowulf). But this doesn’t always work – what do
you do if there is a conflict in loyalties? Gawain
fails in all three of these respects, as you will see.
But he also succeeds.