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Romance Motifs in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
(Quotations and page numbers are from Harrison, Keith, trans., int. and
notes by Helen Cooper. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Oxford;
Oxford World’s Classics: OUP, 1998. Middle English quotations and
page numbers are from Cawley, A. C., ed. Pearl: Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight. London: J. M. Dent, 1962.)
1. General
Of the poem’s date:
“The precise date of the poems (Pearl, Patience, Purity and Sir Gawain) is … hard to
pin down. It is generally agreed that the manuscript was copied no later than 1400,
and that the poems were composed some time before that – conceivably as early as
1350, though the 1370s or 1380s would seem to be more likely from the details they
give of the latest fashions in clothing and architecture.” (p.x.)
Of the Gawain-poet’s apparent influences:
“..the poet was well versed in courtly French literature. He knew the French allegory
of love, The Romance of the Rose; and Sir Gawain itself shows his familiarity with
French Arthurian romance.” (p.xii.)
Of the poem’s audience at the time:
“Poetry was rarely written in the Middle Ages primarily for self-expression. Most
often, as with other art forms, it would be produced for a known and appreciative
reception group, or for a patron; and Sir John Stanley has increasingly been canvassed
as a possible candidate for such a role. [..administrator and man of action who has
some curious incidental connections with poetry and legend..]” (p.xiv)
“Sir Gawain itself, moreover, appears to have been written for a knight of the Garter,
the order of chivalry instituted by Edward II in 1348, since the poem concludes with
the founding of just such an order, and the motto of the Garter knights is inscribed at
the end of the poem.” (p.xvi.)
Of the sources and parallels of plot elements in Sir Gawain:
“The immediate antecedents of many of the plot elements of Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight lie in French Arthurian romances, though it is unusual in not having any
one single source. There is no source at all for the most distinctive of its story motifs,
the knight who is green not only in clothing but in skin and hair as well. Its principal
plot motif, by contrast, the invitation to behead a challenger in return for being
beheaded later, appears in a number of texts and can be traced as far back as Irish
legend. The version closest to that of Sir Gawain, and most certainly known to the
poet, appears in the Livre de Caradoc, part of the ‘First Continuation’ of the Conte del
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Graal, otherwise known as Perceval, which the late 12th century writer Chrétien de
Troyes had left uncompleted.” [Here the beheaded knight returns, strikes with the flat
of the sword and reveals himself to be Carados’ father.] (p.xvii)
Of Gawain’s centrality within English Arthurian tradition:
“The transference of another knight’s French adventures [see Perceval] onto an
English Gawain is an indicator of Gawain’s centrality in the English Arthurian
tradition. He had initially emerged as a major character in Arthurian history in
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century History of the Kings of Britain, in which he is
Arthur’s right-hand warrior in his campaigns of European conquest.” (p.xviii.)
Of Gawain’s loss of status in French Arthurian tradition:
“He appears frequently in the verse romances of Chrétian de Troyes, from the end of
the century, but only in supporting roles: his function is to serve as a foil to the heroes
of the various romances, by their proving their prowess in contrast against him, or, in
the Conte de Graal, by serving as a type of secular chivalry in contrast to the hero
Perceval’s more religious model. In another of Chrétian’s romances, he is displaced
altogether by the knight who has become Arthur’s closest associate in the French
tradition, Lancelot. It is Lancelot who is the central character after Arthur himself (or
even in preference to Arthur) in the great Vulgate cycle of French prose romances of
the 13th century, where 1Gawain slips even further down the ethical and chivalric
scale, to the point where he often functions as an antitype of good knighthood.”
(p.xviii-xix.)
Of Gawain’s brand of courtesy and chivalry:
“In England, Gawain remains what he had been in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History,
Arthur’s principal knight. He is constantly associated in both traditions with courtesy,
but in different senses. In the French, he is skilled at what the Gawain-poet calls lovetalking: this is the reputation that appears to have run ahead of him to Bertilak’s castle
[see e.g. 924-7]. In the English his courtesy shows on a much broader front (such as
being particularly kind to novice knights, or, in the Carl, covering his host’s rain-wet
horse with his own cloak), and he combines fearless prowess with the arts of social,
rather than sexual intercourse. The Gawain-poet was clearly familiar with both the
English and the French traditions, and brings them into dynamic, and slightly comic,
opposition in the scenes in the poem in Gawain’s bedchamber.” (p.xx.)
Of the building blocks of romance writing and the Gawain-poet’s transformation of
them:
“The familiarity of the building blocks of romance … does not require an author
always to build the same edifice with them. Far more effect can be gained through
surprise or suspense when a writer appears to follow the rules of a genre but in fact
breaks them. (…) The Gawain-poet … takes the familiar ingredients of an Arthurian
setting, a quest, a supernatural antagonist, and a return from apparently unavoidable
death, and makes of them something that transforms romance itself." (pp.xxi-xxii.)
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Compare with the descent of Criseida’s moral reputation.
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2. ‘Type’ Motifs
(In this section I will outline ten typical romance themes that can be
found in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The peculiarities of the
Gawain-poet’s treatment of them will not be deeply explored. The most
basic conventions of setting [distant in space and time], people [kings,
knights and ladies], actions [quests / pursuit of ideals], and endings
[happy / instructive], I will state now, are all to some extent discoverable
in the text. The following section on ‘token’ motifs will address more the
Gawain-poet’s specific handling of ‘types’.)
1. Narrative Strategy
Sir Gawain is a story written as if to be heard, not read. The narrator gives us a potted
history of Britain – rich in legend – and then introduces his tale as something he has
heard ‘told in town’ [31ff.]. The narrator appeals to an audience for whom the story,
or at least its characters and setting, are ‘well known’. As such he places his own
creation within an accepted canon of fiction.
2. Expectancy, Anticipation and Suspense
In Gawain we (the reader or hearer) are given a story that both generates expectations
regarding romance conventions and thwarts them. The telling’s linear progression
heightens suspense, and so it is to the genuine surprise of the audience (obviously
only for a first reading) that the poet unfolds his story, especially the ending. (Only
afterwards do we realize that the linear aspect of the tale conceals a mirror
reflectivity.)
3. Opportunity for Expansion
As Cooper says regarding most chivalric tales, “Along the way, adventures can be
multiplied and digressions followed at the will of the writer.” (p. xxii.) In Sir Gawain
this opportunity occurs after Gawain sets out on his quest to find the Green Chapel.
One can imagine that his adventures in transit (the dragons and wolves, etc. [720ff.])
could be fleshed out by a particularly enthusiastic storyteller, at the expense of the
Gawain-poet’s desire to flash past and reveal the true heartland of his tale.
4. The Intrusion of an Unknown Element that Sparks off the Action
The quest is set up via the familiar plot device of the arrival of a stranger, who throws
down a challenge to Arthur’s court. This is bedded into the story well using another
typical motif, that of Arthur’s curious decree that he won’t eat until something
extraordinary happens or a feat of courage in battle has been witnessed [91ff.]. “In Sir
Gawain however, this is the point at which such privileged knowledge stops.”
(p.xxiii.) The presentation of the stranger and what he does is radically reinvented by
the Gawain-poet.
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5. The Dressing and Arming for a Quest
On two occasions the Gawain-poet has his hero go through the typical romance
activity of dressing and arming before going out into the world to face the adventures
entailed by his quest. The first departure from Arthur’s court [566ff.] sees a typical
itemization of a knight’s gear of war presented. The special element here is, of course,
the description and discussion of Gawain’s pentangle; an honourable device as might
be worn by a knight, but also a profoundly significant metaphor that must be
explained to help deliver the full moral weight of the story. The second ‘dressing for
action’ scene occurs just before Gawain’s departure from Bertilak’s castle [2012ff.] to
face the Green Knight. Here again a typical event carries more significant weight as
Gawain’s wearing of the girdle over his pentangle reinforces the symbolism of the
whole story.
6. The Cycle of the Year
The role of Nature’s unending cycle is used with typical (and beyond) effect in Sir
Gawain. At the aesthetic level the poet uses typical imagery of the seasons to bring
out emotions and atmospheres (esp. winter and dread before the fated confrontation in
the Green Chapel [1998ff.]). At the level of metaphor, the line from New Year to New
Year, set between the celebrations of Christ’s birth, brings out the themes of life’s
journey, mortality, judgement and eschatological verification (presumably, given the
moral tone of the poem). Note that from this vantage point one is tempted to see the
figure of the Green Knight in divine terms, as the pronouncer of judgement.
7. The Supernatural
The story of Sir Gawain typically contains many supernatural elements: his
antagonist’s immortality and ‘greenness’; the magic girdle that (it is claimed) serves
as a talisman of protection; the various monsters and beasties that are mentioned in
passing, to be vanquished by the travelling Gawain; and, most mysterious of all, the
figure of Morgan le Fay, who residing at Bertilak’s castle, seems to be at the back of
all that is weird and wonderful in the tale. The use of the supernatural (in the magical
sense) is also typically contrasted with the Christian supernatural of divine protection
and moral judgement. Gawain appeals to Mary for help on occasion, and it is to Mary
that the narrator commits the conduct of the sexually tempted knight. This curious
mixture of pagan and Christian ‘super-sensibilities’ is a type motif. However, the
Gawain-poet’s use of the magical to cast judgement on the Christian is fascinating.
8. Gamesmanship and Honour
Under this ‘type’ motif we can bring in many diverse aspects of Sir Gawain: the
central role of the beheading pact between Gawain and the Green Knight [287ff.]; the
honour-bound agreement between Gawain and Bertilak to exchange the profits of ‘the
hunt’ [1105ff.]; the game of ‘love-talk’ between Gawain and Bertilak’s wife [1210ff.];
Gawain’s acceptance of the girdle (as a double ‘pact-breaking’ love-token and selfpreserver) [1863ff.]; and the ultimate revelation and judgement scene whereby
Gawain’s performance in the true trial is presented as a failure of the unremitting
dictates of honour [2339ff.]. Although the typical ideas of chivalry and honour are all
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here, the Gawain-poet’s use of them is so sophisticated as to raise many fundamental
questions about their very nature.
9. Moral Instruction as well as Entertainment
The Green Knight’s pronouncement of Gawain’s failure of the quest and Gawain’s
own sense of failure and shame cast the story in a morally instructive light.
Entertainment has been had along the way, but at the end of the day a moral
evaluation of a knight’s conduct is given for the purposes of moral instruction and
edification [2338ff.]. The uniqueness of Sir Gawain is in the fact of his actually
failing the quest (even if only in his own eyes) and thereby serving as a reverse
(negative) example or model. It is this failure that also gives Sir Gawain a power
beyond that of other more typical romances – wherein the perfection of chivalrous
conduct is seen achieved by special, seemingly superhuman characters, and hence
made all the more remote and unbelievable for the average listener.
10. Conformity of Beginning with End
As the tale began with the description of Brutus’ Britain that leads into Arthur’s court,
so does it end with Arthur’s court leading out to Brutus’ Isle and the final motto,
(Honi Soyt Qui Mal Pense), thus providing the story with typical cyclic resolution.
More than this however is the book’s mirror reflectivity down the centre line - the
seduction scenes wherein the real trial of Gawain takes place – a form that is only
understandable having heard the conclusion. As such the parts of the story fall into
place. Ultimately, Sir Gawain differs from type by also rendering an ending that
leaves all things the same as they were at the beginning, but at the same time feeling
unnervingly different. Gawain’s honour has been dented, and the honour and
reputation of Arthur’s court somehow changed as a result. The fact that everyone
adopts the green girdle of Gawain’s shame is not an accident. In summary therefore,
the Gawain-poet’s version of this typical motif is again extremely thought provoking,
as he says, “Our endings rarely square with our beginnings.” [499]
3. ‘Token’ Motifs
(In this section I will quote specific lines from the text and draw out
specific romance motifs as they are employed by the Gawain-poet.)