Connections In Beowulf, Lanval And Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Connections Found in British Literature In many works of British literature, readers can find tales of many great fictional knights. Such works include “Beowulf” by an anonymous author, “Lanval” by Marie de France, and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” by the Pearl Poet. The three men, who are called Beowulf, Lanval, and Sir Gawain, all share the responsibilities of knighthood. The responsibility for a knight was high, but that does not mean that they were always faultless heroes. These stories of these knights showed their humanity and were written for life lessons. The connections that these stories make, which include the loyalty between a knight and lord, the imperfections that knights had, and the consequences and outcomes that knights faced for their actions, can tie directly between the connection of knighthood and the British identity. In most works that express the importance of knighthood, one of the main aspects that is looked at is the loyalty between a knight and his lord. The relationship between a knight and his lord is very important and is built on trust by the service of the knight and the rewards of the lord. In the story of Lanval, the relationship between Lanval and King Arthur becomes worse when Lanval disrespects the king’s wife after Lanval insults her in lines 291-300 (de France 160). To disrespect …show more content…
Sir Gawain finds the Green Chapel and receives his blow just like he promised in their pact, but he is not killed because the Green Knight tested Sir Gawain and saw that he could trust him as stated in lines 2362-2365 (Gawain 234). Many kings feared that there were traitors among them and many wanted to figure out if the people they believed to be a traitor was actually telling the truth. For the most part, however, the person accused would be imprisoned but there were few that could escape that terrible fate if they could prove themselves and their loyalty to their