Æsir

Normally when someone gets their head cut off, they die. This is not the case in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” King Arthur, along with his knights, family, and friends, are all gathered at a new years party with a lot of meat. Seriously there is a lot of meat. At the entrance, a stranger arrives and everything about him is green. His body, his armor, and even his horse, yes his horse is green. I’m not certain if his particular hue indicates a deeper meaning or if it is just for…

In James Winny’s translation of the Arthurian Romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain is King Arhur’s closest and best knight. The plot advances as he participates in a quest which tests the five ideals that comprise his character: fraunchyse, felagschyp, clannes, cortayse, and pité (652-4). The image on the outside of Gawain’s shield is the “the pure pentangle” (664), also described as “the endeles knot” (630), representing his embodiment of the five traits. Although the word “knot”…

Sir Gawain’s Shame: the Transformation of a Symbol and the Loss of an Identity In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the title character Gawain faces a personal moral dilemma with very public consequences. His moral downfall takes physical form through the symbolic transformation of the gift Gawain receives from Morgan Le Fay, a green girdle. Initially, the girdle is a symbol of protection; however, when Gawain breaks his contract with the Green Knight, it becomes a symbol of personal shame. Once…

In particular, knight’s reputation as a chivalrous man can also often be conditional on how he performs in a sexual charged dilemma. The great Arthurian knight Gawain is a great example of how a patriarchal order structures his actions in both “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and “The Knight of the Sword”. In each story, a woman is used as a pawn by either her husband or her father in order to test Gawain’s status as a virtuous knight from the grand King Arthur’s Round Table. The virtues of…

Making of a Knight Middle English texts such as Sir Gawain the Green Knight and Canterbury Tales: Knights Tale and Wife of Bath contain main characters upholding the position of medieval knights. These knights garner the chivalric ideals of a knight that adhere to a particular code. Using this code of conduct followed by chivalry, I will explain throughout this paper how and why the main characters of these texts follow these chivalric traits in the characters which encompass the traits that…

ages. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Europeans of higher status depended on the loyalty of a brave knight. The process of becoming a knight was long and ongoing. First of all, becoming a knight was a privilege that certain sons had. If a young boy was the son of someone with higher status, he was allowed the opportunity to receive the necessary training for knighthood. At around the age of seven, the young boy would report to the castle to begin minor training to become a page,…

At the beginning of the story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the story takes place around Christmas time and New Year’s. In the first scene, “Many good knights and gay his guests were there, Arrayed of the Round Table rightful brothers, With feasting and fellowship and carefree mirth.”(Pg.4, lines 38-40) The characters are seated around King Arthur’s round table celebrating the holiday. There is food, carol-dancing, and gift giving. Also this is all happening in December, one of the coldest…

court functions by a Christian chivalrous code, in which bravery and courtesy become the testament in which produces a characters standing. However, the arrival of the Green Knight signals the abrupt destruction of this ideal, leaving both court and Sir Gawain to abandon their loyalty to the code. The contrast of atmosphere, reception, and the nature of sensual temptation in Bertilak’s court versus Arthur’s court, illustrates Arthur’s court fails to abide to the standard code of Christian…

inevitable. Heroes (e.g. Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Rostam, Sohrab, Sekander, etc.), both, historical and literary, share common features, such as selflessness and compassion for their people. Outsiders, however, are not considered to be a hero despite their self-made strengths and skills. The medieval world depended on royal lineage to accept a leader, because they are believed to be descendants of the mighty gods; this type of preference signifies the heavy influence…

In the in the 14th century medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Brian Stone, chivalry is a main virtue that the characters strive to live by and pursue even to their deaths. Chivalry itself is a religious and moral code suggesting that the ideal knight lives by truth, loyalty, respect and Christ. In the text, Sir Gawain, a chivalrous knight of Arthur’s round table, is sent on a quest to be struck by a blow after chopping off the head of the Green Knight during Christmas…