Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Introduction

Author
Anonymous.  Written c. 1400 (Same era as Chaucer).  Rediscovered in 1839.

Form
101 stanzas (beginning and ending on New Years Day).  Alliterative with “bob and wheel”.  Old English with large amounts of Old Norse (Danish) vocabulary.

Celtic Paganism And Christianity: Magic Meets Chivalry

Again, the story blends an ancient Celtic Pagan story with Christian Chivalry:  King Arthur’s “Civilized”, Christian, Chivalric court is “invaded” by the clearly Pagan Green Knight on the Pagan New Years holiday.

A combination of two traditional tales and themes:

1) The Beheading Game: traditional Celtic/Irish (Fled Bricrend, c. 1100): a grotesque ogre enters a hall where the Ulaid heroes have gathered, searching for a man who will deal with him fairly.  Three heroes agree to behead the ogre but refuse the return blow, offered on the following night.  The fourth hero, Cu Chulaind, accepts the blows, given in the same manner as in Sir Gawain, and the ogre lauds his courage and disappears.

Basically, honorable/virtuous/chivalric men honor their agreements “Trwe mon trwe restore” – “A true man must repay.”

2) The Temptation Theme: a fairly common story in which a hero and maiden must resist sexual temptation as they await some larger cause or prepare for heroic deeds.

This theme hinges on the ambivalent sexual relationship inherent to Courtly Love.

What is unique in this story is how these two are joined to a common theme: the knight’s competing loyalties: to kings – both Arthur and Bercilak, to the queen, and to himself and his own personal desires and life.

(Contrast the relationships here with Achilles to Agamemnon and Breseis; or between Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus)

Through the process Gawain learns the limits of his chivalry and faith.  And yet, ironically and appropriately, learning these limits actually perfects him as a Christian knight.