"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Lynn M.
Zott. Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
Introduction
Critically acclaimed as a masterpiece and considered the best of the English medieval
romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an anonymous Arthurian romance, most likely
from the fourteenth century, written in alliterative verse, comprising 2530 lines in 101 stanzas.
The story incorporates elements drawn from several centuries of folklore and legend, Christian
and Celtic symbolism, and portions from French and Latin versions of the tale. The narrative
describes the adventures of Sir Gawain, King Arthur's youngest knight, as his courage and vows
of chastity and honor are tested by circumstances arranged by a giant of a knight, clad in green
armor, with a green face and green hair. Because the text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is
in Middle English and in a particularly difficult northwest Midlands dialect, it is most familiar to
modern readers in translation; nevertheless, the original language of the poem is highly praised
for its beauty and richness. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight exists in only one manuscript,
following three other poems by the same author: Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness(also
called Purity). No portion of these poems is known to appear in any other manuscript. The small
quarto volume that contains these four works has been housed in the British Museum since 1753;
it contains no titles or headings, although large blue and red letters set off the main divisions.
The volume also contains several full-page illustrations. Scholars have had no success in
identifying the Gawain-poet (also known as the Pearl-poet), although several suggestions and
theories have been offered. For the genius he displays in Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight through innovations in language, style, characterization, and plot, the Gawain-poet is
considered by critics on the level of Chaucer, his contemporary.
Plot and Major Characters
Christmas Eve festivities at the court of King Arthur are disrupted when a green knight abruptly
enters the room and issues a challenge: Is there a knight present who dares to trade blows of an
ax with him? The Green Knight will take the first blow and the challenger will receive the
second a year later at the Green Knight's distant chapel. Sir Gawain accepts and advances to the
kneeling intruder, whose neck is exposed. With one strike Gawain severs the Green Knight's
head from his body. The body, however, rises up immediately, picks up its head, jumps on its
horse, and rides away. Months pass and on All Hallow's Day, Gawain rides off in search of the
Green Chapel. After weeks of winter travel and dangerous adventures, Gawain reaches Castle
Hautdesert. The lord of the castle, Bertilak, informs Gawain that the Green Chapel is very close
and asks that he stay in the castle as his guest for three days. The two men agree to an Exchange
of Winnings: Bertilak will give Gawain all the game he catches on his hunts, and Gawain will
give his host all gifts he receives during his stay. The beautiful Lady Bertilak enters Gawain's
bedchamber immediately after her husband commences his first day's hunt. She attempts to
seduce Gawain, but he courteously refuses. The second morning is much like the first. The third
morning Gawain accepts a gift from Lady Bertilak: an embroidered green girdle (or belt), which
has the special power of making its bearer invulnerable to any mortal blow. When Bertilak
returns that night and gives Gawain the results of the day's hunt, Gawain says nothing of the
girdle. The following morning Gawain departs with a guide and finds the Green Chapel almost
immediately. Gawain offers his neck. The Green Knight starts to swing his ax but Gawain
flinches, earning taunts for his cowardice. The second swing is deliberately checked by the
Green Knight--it was intended to test Gawain's steadfastness. The third blow only nicks him. The
Green Knight informs him that the nick was punishment for breaking their Exchange of
Winnings promise and reveals that he and the Lord Bertilak are one and the same. Gawain is
ashamed and chastises himself, although Bertilak tells him his debt has been paid. He tells him
that the test was devised by Morgan le Fay, Arthur's half-sister, in order to prove that his knights
are not so honorable as they appear. Gawain returns to King Arthur's court with the green girdle
as a token of his failure. The other knights, however, find the adventure amusing, consider
Gawain triumphant, and put on silk girdles of their own, as a symbol of "the renown of the
Rounde Table."
Major Themes
Scholars have traditionally regarded the themes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as
ambiguous. Some view the poem as the tale of a noble knight who resists sexual temptation and
so keeps his vow of chastity. Others interpret it as the unveiling of a knight's improper behavior:
According to the second group, Gawain renders what he intends as a mortal wound to the Green
Knight, not a sparing blow, as the chivalric code dictates. He also rejects the rules of courtly love
by refusing Lady Bertilak's advances; he is disloyal to his host and their Exchange of Winnings
Agreement in not giving Bertilak the girdle; and he is cowardly when he avoids the first swing of
the Green Knight's ax. Critics consider the puzzle of the theme a major asset of Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight and they continue to debate whether the real test was what happened at Castle
Hautdesert rather than the exchange of blows, as well as whether, finally, Gawain passed or
failed the tests.
Critical Reception
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century and has
received a tremendous amount of critical and scholarly attention since the early part of the
twentieth century. In the 1980s Bill Moyers' Public Television series "Joseph Campbell and the
Power of Myth" also introduced the story to millions of viewers. Campbell interprets the Green
Knight's life after beheading as an example of vegetative myth, with life and death in an endless
cycle. TheGawain-poet is universally praised by critics for his inventiveness. Larry D. Benson
and Wendy Clein discuss how the author habitually played against the expectations of his
contemporary audience, familiar with the conventions of oral literature. Sacvan Bercovitch,
likewise, explains that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight runs counter to typical medieval
romance tradition in so many ways that it is more fitting to consider it an anti-romance. W. A.
Davenport examines the stylistic techniques employed by the Gawain-poet, particularly in
characterization and the use of role reversals; numerous critics note that in many ways it is the
Green Knight who is exemplary, not Gawain. Davenport writes that "Gawain's progress through
the courtly maze of experience to a kind of bittersweet maturity seems, eventually, to be a fair
enough fictional image of one part of life." Joseph M. Lenz offers a structural study of the tale
and writes, "Very few poems are more structurally sound than Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight." Albert B. Friedman, while not disagreeing with Lenz, finds one flaw: Morgan le Fay
betrays her roots in early folk tales and, as Friedman points out, remains a "thread imperfectly
woven into the narrative." Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provides much material for the
study of the medieval notion of courtesy and Derek Pearsall and Jonathan Nicholls analyze
the Gawain-poet's questioning of its role in the chivalric code. Ad Putter focuses on the
temptation scenes, while Anne Rooney focuses on those of hunting; while many critics believe
that these scenes work effectively in juxtaposition, Rooney urges caution in making more of the
hunting scenes than what they are--engaging descriptions inserted into the narrative to maintain
audience interest. The symbolism displayed in the poem is studied by Piotr Sadowski, who
discusses the meaning of the greenness of the Green Knight. The pentangle, a symbol on
Gawain's shield which the Gawain-poet describes in very detailed fashion , fascinates numerous
critics because of its melding of Christian and pagan elements. Arthur Lindley warns against too
much searching for symbolism and meaning, however, asserting that ambiguity is integral to the
theme of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and that critics who seek to resolve its conflicting
themes are misguided.
FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CRITICISM

Burrow, J. A. "Conclusion." In A Reading of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," pp.
160-86. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965.
Contends that two modes, romantic and realistic, are present in the work.

Davis, Nick. ""Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Unfolded Narrative." InStories of
Chaos: Reason and Its Displacement in Early Modern English Narrative, pp. 39-73.
Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1999.
Analyzes the Pentangle emblem found on Gawain's shield and explains its
significance.

Fox, Denton, editor. Twentieth Century Interpretations of "Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight": A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968,
115p.
Includes classic critical examinations.

Howard, Donald R. and Christian Zacher, editors. Critical Studies of "Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight." Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968, 331p.
Includes essays from twenty-two authors grouped around style and technique;
characters and setting; and assorted interpretations of the poem.

Johnson, Lynn Staley. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." In The Voice of the GawainPoet. pp. 37-96. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
Analyzes the work in light of its concerns with religious matters and social unrest.

Pearsall, Derek. "Courtesy and Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:The Order
of Shame and the Invention of Embarrassment." In A Companion to the GawainPoet, edited by Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson, pp. 351-62. Cambridge, England: D.
S. Brewer, 1997.
Analyzes the nature of Sir Gawain's shame and embarrassment.

Prior, Sandra Pierson. "Signs of the Divine in Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight." In Fayre Formez of the Pearl Poet, pp. 96-117. East Lansing:
Michagan State Universtiy Press, 1996.
Discusses the religious symbolism present in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Shoaf, R. A. "The Poem in Its Commercial Context." In The Poem as Green
Girdle: Commercium in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," pp. 5-14. Gainesville:
University Presses of Florida, 1984.
Contends that the poem represents the conflict between two value systems:
chivalry and commerce.

Silverstein, Theodore. Introduction to "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight": A New
Critical Edition, pp. 1-31. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Overview of the work that covers sources, form, manuscript history, authorship,
and style.

Stanbury, Sarah. "The Framing of the Gaze in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
In Seeing the "Gawain"-Poet: Description and the Act of Perception,pp. 96-115.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Contends that the narrative's emphasis on acts of gazing demonstrates the
importance the author placed on interpretive responses.

Wilson, Edward. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." In The Gawain-Poet, pp. 113-31.
Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1976.
Examines the role of game-playing in the poem.