Jess Hindes
Analysis of a passage from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (130 – 490)
Part of the reason why Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is so enjoyable is its author’s
mastery of literary techniques as simple as suspense. Whereas in Malory much of the
action simply happens without precedent or explanation, Gawain sets up a story which
gradually unfolds and which has a clear trajectory from beginning to end. Such narrative
techniques can be seen even in this relatively short passage from the beginning of the
book, marking the entrance of the Green Knight into the revelling court of King Arthur.
This is the scene in which the plot really rolls into action, and as a reader is where the
story becomes truly gripping; the poet’s introduction of the Green Knight as a character,
as well as his gradual revelation of the challenge which the Knight comes to lay down,
make this passage particularly powerful.
The passage begins with an authorial statement of intention: ‘Now wyl I of hor seruise
say yow no more’ (130).
Such apostrophes to the reader are typical of much of
Medieval literature; the Gawain narrator is less of an engaging personality than most of
Chaucer’s, but even so he plays an important role in deciding what his readers will get to
see and in influencing how they understand it.
Here, then, he breaks off from an
apparently uninteresting point, alerting the reader to the fact that some more exciting
event is impending. His reaction to this event, the entrance of the ‘aghlich mayster’, the
Green Knight (136), informs that of the reader; ‘half etayn in erde I hope þat he were’;
such a response suggests to us the terrible inhumanity of the knight as perceived by
Arthur’s courtiers; the conclusion ‘bot mon most I algate mynn hym to bene’ (137)
significant not only for the extra extraordinariness (!) it confers upon the Knight but also
for the importance of the knowledge it attributes to the narrator. After all, his saying that
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the Knight is all man and no ogre is the only evidence that we have on which to build our
own understanding; the limits that this therefore imposes are made clear later in the
passage, at line 246:
‘I deme hit not al for doute,
Bot sum for cortaysyeBot let hym þat ak schulde loute
Cast vnto þat wyзe.’
(246-249)
The narrator gives his opinion but makes clear to the reader that his knowledge is not
certain: he may ‘deme’ that the court’s silence stems partially from politeness, but it is
only God who can ever genuinely know. Such apparent humility on the part of the
narrator contrasts greatly with the omniscient narrator familiar from modern third-person
literature (the examples are too great to name but a couple of examples might be the
works of Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy). In these modern works, then, the reader relies
unconditionally on the facts relayed to them by the author, and also necessarily on the
judgements that the author imposes; to question the judgement is to question the fact,
and so to bring the whole crumbling down. However, the implication of the medieval text
is that there is some greater truth outside the author’s knowledge (ultimately residing, of
course, with God). The effect is bizarrely liberating for the reader; an acknowledgement
of the author’s limitations means that we are effectively invited to question the
judgements that are being given to us, to read actively and to focus our attention
critically on the events that are described. The potential for irony here is found not
through a knowledge gap between characters and readers/narrator, but between
characters/narrator and readers. Thus, although the author may suggest that the court’s
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timidity was founded in part on good manners, we are entirely free to make our own
judgement that in fact it was straightforward fear; just as, in Troilus and Criseyde, we do
not have to believe all of Chaucer’s protestations about Criseyde’s sincere regret.
The Gawain-poet, then, encourages an active reading of his text in implying a fallible
narrative voice; the reader is expected to attend carefully to what he reads; or rather,
and perhaps more likely, the listener must focus on what he hears.
After all it is
important to remember that the text would likely have been heard, rather than read, by
the great majority of its original audience; as such, the aural effects created by the poet
are of primary importance. The most obvious of these, certainly to a modern ear, is the
heavy use of alliteration; and again, this is directly related to the fact that the poem was
probably written for recitation. Alliteration, like rhyme, makes a work more memorable to
the orator. However, this does not mean that it has no other effect; the apostrophes to
the reader might be intended in part to ensure that the listening audience does not doze
off, but they work also in more complicated ways. The same is true of the poem’s
alliteration. In many instances, the effect is almost onomatopoeic; this is true particularly
in the stanza at which the blow is struck:
‘…þe scharp of the schalk schyndered þe bones,
And schrank þurз þe schyire grece, and schade hit in twynne…’
(424-5)
The ‘sch’ sounds the poet employs conjure up the sound of an axe skimming through
flesh, almost a sound effect like those found in modern radio programmes; the
alliteration here is not just practical, an aide-memoire, but evocative; the poet plays with
the devices available to him, maximising their effect. Like any good poet, the author of
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Gawain also makes creative use of his stanza form; the first clearly evident instance of
this in the passage comes at the end of its first stanza, when he reveals just how
marvellous the Green Knight really is: ‘oueral enker-grene’ (150). The information given
– and in detail, too – the exact shade, bright green – is further emphasised by the fact
that this revelation is immediately followed by a stanza break. Whether the poem is
being read aloud or from the page, such a break creates a pause in which the full impact
of this revelation is allowed to sink in; the poet forces his reader to grapple with the
difficult idea that this really is a Green Knight, not merely clad in the colour but hair,
horse and weapon all saturated with the hue. With the adjective left, as it is, hanging
impressively alone on the end of a stanza, the poet ensures its impact is properly felt.
He goes on to reinforce this with an incredible number of references to the Knight’s
colour (and that of his horse) throughout the whole passage: a rough count yields a total
of twenty ‘grene’s in these 350 lines, and most of them are concentrated in the first few
stanzas, during which the reader is forming a picture of the Knight in his or her mind.
Such an emphasis on the ‘meruayl’ (466) that the Knight is perceived to be makes more
sense in context with the end of the poem; we learn that his appearance and actions are
all calculated to shock, that Morgan le Fay has sent him:
‘For to haf greued Gaynor and gart her to dyзe
With glopnyng of þat ilke gome that gostlich speked
With his hede in his honde before þe hyзe table’
(2460-2462)
The poet’s handling of this incident of the speaking severed head is so powerful that
such a possibility does not seem unlikely.
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In the stanza beginning at line 417, he
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misdirects his readers, building up to Gawain’s blow as a great climax and one in which
Arthur’s knight is certain to triumph: the details of the Green Knight’s preparations
emphasise his nakedness and vulnerability: ‘þe lere he discouerez/… let þe naked nec…
showe’ (418-420). Similarly, the blow itself is described in detail, (‘þe kay fot on the folde
he before sette’ (422)), building up suspense as the reader hurries quickly through the
lines in search of the outcome to this ‘melly’ (342). The poet takes full advantage of his
astonishing narrative; the turn, when it comes, is abrupt and complete. Line 429 is
triumphal: ‘þe blod brayd fro þe body, þat blykked on the grene’; the mere mention of this
word ‘grene’, however, seems to swing the stanza back in the Green Knight’s favour,
although the next word is a deceptively conjunctive ‘and’: the ‘bot’ does not come until
431; but it is in line 430 that the author first alerts his readers that there is more to this
combatant than has at first appeared: ‘and nawþer faltered ne fel þe freke neuer þe
helder’. The repeated negatives draw attention to the statement’s strangeness; how
could such a blow be struck, the head rolling on the floor for the court to kick at it, and its
victim feel no effect?
The poet plays upon the unease he creates by dividing the
Knight’s next actions line-by-line; he steps forward (431), reaches out (432), lifts up his
head (433), goes to his horse (434), steps into the stirrups (435)… to the reader, eagerly
awaiting explanation or conclusion, such an effect is both maddening and engrossing.
The poet, again, plays with his material for maximum dramatic effect; and again, the
contrast with Malory, where even the most dramatic action is recounted at what feels like
breakneck speed, is enlightening.
The description of the knight, then, his red eyes rolling in his head, is engineered to
intimidate; of course it does so very successfully, and one of the most entertaining and
attractive aspects of the passage is that the reactions of Arthur’s men in many ways
mirror those of the readers. As the Green Knight himself points out, ‘þe rous rennes’ of
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these knights through many lands (310); Arthur’s ‘burnes best ar holden,/ Stifest under
stel-gere on steeds to ryde’ (259-60). Such apparent braveness on the field of battle
makes the knights’ unwillingness to come forward and confront this apparition doubly
comic; it is in the interaction between the characters that the text seems most able to
reach out to a modern reader.
Descriptions of armour and of hunting practice are
interesting but somehow alienating; we are reminded that Medieval and modern worlds
are very different; but in the dialogue and character dynamics, there seems something
that is essentially unchanged. The poet makes this effect more powerful by aligning the
reader with the knights of Arthur’s court; our knowledge of the stranger is as limited as is
theirs, and our eagerness to learn more correspondingly great. When the Knight first
speaks, we hang on his words: ‘“Wher is,” he sayd,/ “þe gouernour of this gyng?”’ (224)
The poet breaks off the question halfway through, leaving the reader in eager
anticipation across the line break; he teases us by leaving the sentence’s subject
unstated for as long as possible. The pause implied by ‘he sayd’ also makes the Knight
somehow more intimidating; the poet’s deliberate suspense suggests in this instance
(given the visual power of the scene) that the Knight, too, is playing to the crowd. As
such, his assessment of the knights at 280 as ‘bot berdlez chylder’ reads provocatively;
the Knight is trying to prod the court into responding with aggression, just as his wife will
later tempt Gawain towards responding passionately to her advantages. The reader,
well able to see this manipulation, feels the suspense gradually increase as the knight
presses home his advantage:
‘Now is þe reuel and þe renoun of þe Rounde Table
Ouerwalt with a worde of on wyзes speche,
For al dares for drede withoute dynt schewed!’
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(313-15)
The poet’s earlier emphasis on the nobility and strength of Arthur’s knights makes us
certain that they will not simply sit and listen to such chastisement; but here again the
poet does not release the tension immediately. Even to a modern reader (and so how
much more to Medieval listeners), Arthur’s taking of the commission upon himself, ‘for
scham’ at his knight’s incompetence (317), seems inappropriate; the poet lets him get
almost as far as striking the blow, however, before bringing in Gawain with his objection.
Just as, at the close of the poem, he draws out the suspense of the situation by
describing in detail the knight’s three threatened blows, the poet creates a truly
compelling narrative by setting up a conflict and not resolving it until the last minute. As
with the whole of the passage, this demonstrates a sophistication of narrative –
essentially, of dramatic – technique which is thrown into real relief by comparison with
that other great English Arthurian narrative, Le Morte D’Arthur.
Malory’s work is
attractive and entertaining for many reasons, but the Gawain-poet’s understanding of
narrative technique, and the ease with which he manipulates his readers, makes Gawain
and the Greek Knight compelling in a way that few of Malory’s more straightforward
stories quite manage to achieve.
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