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Study Notes: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Two
websites with synopses of the poem:
Brother Anthony's general summary
A student-authored, section-by-section
summary with analysis
Luminarium's
handy
links page
Andreas
Capellanus' 12th Century Art of Courtly Love
This narrative poem deals with a well-known character from Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain, the nephew of Arthur by his half-sister, Morgause. The poet is the anonymous author of three other sacred allegorical poems, Purity, Patience, and Pearl. The poem is written in a Northwestern dialect of Middle English as opposed to the London form in which Chaucer wrote. The poem's form is called bob-and-wheel, meaning that each longish (12-20-line) stanza is concluded with a "bob" (a short 2-syllable or 1-beat line) and a "wheel" (4 3-beat lines). The lines rhyme, but they also contain a fair amount of alliteration, which makes this poem part of the alliterative revival that took place in England in the late 13th century - a renewed interest, 500-600 years later, in Anglo-Saxon forms.
Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight is a carefully structured tale, set at two
Christmastimes, one year apart. Its major events are laid out thus:
Frame that establishes the setting (Britain)
and its history –
Troy (ll. 1-12)
Brutus (ll. 13-24)
Arthur (ll. 25-36)
the Court (ll. 37-59)
The Challenge and Acceptance (60-416)
The "Battle" with the Green Knight (417-490, end Part 1)
Gawain's Vesting with the Pentangle (491-669)
(his journey to the Green Knight and his
arrival at that court- ll. 670-994)
First Hunt
(deer) / First Temptation (kiss) / slaughter of the deer (995-1125, end Part 2)
Second Hunt (boar) / Second Temptation (kiss) / slaughter of the boar
(1126-1687)
Third Hunt (fox) / Third Temptation (green girdle)/ slaughter of the fox
(1688-1997, end Part 3)
Gawain's Vesting with the Green Girdle (1998-2046)
The Second "Battle" with the Green Knight (2047-2330)
Fulfillment & Realization (2331-2474)
(his return journey to Camelot - 2475-2489)
Concluding Frame, which prophesies England's
future: Court (2490-2520)
Arthur (2521-22)
Brutus (2523-24)
Troy (2525)
* Setting: A world present to all the senses with sharply defined objects and actions.
* Muscular images and rhythms-the Green Knight (GK) is a source of violent imagery and energy. The poem slows down and focuses on him only, so that it appears as a kind of parenthesis in the action (lines 134-220).
movement of huge axe, crunch
Green Knight, hurtling in at the hall door (1. 134)
greener than grass, vitality (1. 235-6)
* Reaction of Arthur's court to the GK's challenge: silence, astonishment, awe, fear, laughter. The Green Knight is present so that Gawain and the entire court can react, providing a focal point on Gawain and the Arthurian civilization.
* We discover Gawain to be heroic, but
also very human:
peeping around curtains, feigning sleep, sleepless the night before
the "test", shamed, angry and bitter over his "failure"
* 2 plot elements fuse: Beheading Game, and Temptation, each with a different opponent.
* Test of Gawain - his secular and religious ideals - Courtesy and Chastity - he is Mary's Knight, a chaste hero with moral scruples (but not according to Arthurian literature, e.g., "The Wife of Bath's Tale," which the Lady seems to be more familiar with). A courteous (vs. a Christian) knight is known for his elegant conversation about love, his politeness and good breeding, his courtly behavior, including his willingness to become involved in love affairs. In being Mary's Knight, Gawain's Chastity and courtesy fuse; however, when he takes the green girdle, he is no longer her knight, but the Lady's.
* Gawain in his anger lists all the female Old Testament deceivers in the mal de femme tradition, which is not exactly in keeping with a knight of courtesy. He attacks the whole system of devotion to women, creating a fragmentation of the Ideal; he can't bridge the gap between Christian asceticism and Courtesy.
* We watch Gawain from the outside, with kind of a comic light, in a sexual hunt with the roles reversed - subtle strategies in conversation: he plays naive, stupid, forgetful, overly humble--all to sidestep the lady.
* Watch the significant indirection in speeches throughout: the language of courtesy is delayed by subordinate clauses as the Speaker skirts a series of obstacles. The syntax seems to wind itself along, one step forward, for every three steps sideways--with many parenthetical phrases and inserts - polite exaggerations, qualifying phrases, twisting, turning strategies
