The 14th century Arthurian romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” opens with a description of the fall of Troy and subsequent founding of Rome and Britain, introducing an idea the author revisits numerous times: the necessity of destruction to growth, death to life.
The poem could, itself, be said to follow an overarching life cycle; it begins and ends in matching references to Brutus and is propelled by stanzas that feel cyclic in their rhyming five line closes. To be less abstract, however, through characterization, in-plot games, and setting, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” conveys the necessity of faith to coping with life cycles, in which death is an immanent part. The characterizations of the green knight, Bertilak, and Bertilak’s wife suggest the coexistence of life and death, which is essential to conveying the importance of faith to one’s acceptance of mortality. Regardless of his green skin, hair, and armor, which suggest fertility and new life, the green knight is a “fearful form” (136). Although he is not armoured, claiming to “[spoil] for no scrap,” the knight coerces Gawain into a lethal game (279). He also enters the Yuletide feast, at the outset of the poem, carrying both a sprig of holly and an ominous axe capable of “[shearing] a man’s scalp (213). This …show more content…
By keeping fidelity to God and the chivalric code, Gawain is ultimately saved from the finality of death, which could be interpreted as a parallel to eternal salvation as propagated by the Abrahamic faiths. With the modern dissipation of religion, one might argue that texts so central to faith, like “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” have lost relevance; however, regardless of its being written over six centuries ago, its insight into humankind’s difficulty coping with mortality rends the poem meaningful even in this day and
The poem could, itself, be said to follow an overarching life cycle; it begins and ends in matching references to Brutus and is propelled by stanzas that feel cyclic in their rhyming five line closes. To be less abstract, however, through characterization, in-plot games, and setting, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” conveys the necessity of faith to coping with life cycles, in which death is an immanent part. The characterizations of the green knight, Bertilak, and Bertilak’s wife suggest the coexistence of life and death, which is essential to conveying the importance of faith to one’s acceptance of mortality. Regardless of his green skin, hair, and armor, which suggest fertility and new life, the green knight is a “fearful form” (136). Although he is not armoured, claiming to “[spoil] for no scrap,” the knight coerces Gawain into a lethal game (279). He also enters the Yuletide feast, at the outset of the poem, carrying both a sprig of holly and an ominous axe capable of “[shearing] a man’s scalp (213). This …show more content…
By keeping fidelity to God and the chivalric code, Gawain is ultimately saved from the finality of death, which could be interpreted as a parallel to eternal salvation as propagated by the Abrahamic faiths. With the modern dissipation of religion, one might argue that texts so central to faith, like “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” have lost relevance; however, regardless of its being written over six centuries ago, its insight into humankind’s difficulty coping with mortality rends the poem meaningful even in this day and