Æsir

the end of their lives. Because of this, that same green brought to mind the sanctity – or lack thereof – of eternal life. These themes have been brought forth in an allegorical romance written in the fourteenth century by an anonymous poet, entitled Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.…

excerpt of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which is a tale about Gawain encountering challenges he must face and overcome. A challenge is placed before the round table where Gawain is granted one free swing to kill the Green Knight and if unsuccessful, must seek out to receive the exact same a year from the current day. Following this encounter, as Gawain is in search of the Knight he owes, he stumbles upon a castle with a most generous lord and lady where a deal is made between lord and Sir…

Anglo-Saxon period, for instance, honor defined how great someone or something is . Likewise, the Middle English narrative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight reflects this continuation in cultural values .These works embody the belief that maintaining of honor of their respective houses is of utmost importance, but the concept of honor begins to shift. At the onset of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight both heroes heed the call to elevate and preserve the honor of their respective…

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by the Gawain Poet, the knights of King Arthur’s court consume themselves in heroic achievement. Sir Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, believes himself to be the lowest of all knights residing in Camelot. Gawain is a humble man who believes his weakness is a dishonor to the knights of the round table. Gawain handles his realities with good intentions, as he furthers himself as a proper knight and changes himself to bring honor to his uncle’s court. Gawain’s…

and different people and places. In this day and age it is considered foolish for a man to do just that. Courage can be described by this passage in the Green Literature text book in From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on page174 after the Green Knight rides into King Arthur’s hall and challenges Arthur when Sir Gawain asks Arthur to “grant me the grace” to accept the Green Knights challenge. To do what Gawain does takes a tremendous amount of courage; this example can be related to the…

The identity of the Green Knight in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is a topic that has been discussed amongst scholars for decades. Throughout academia the Green Knight has been theorized as a remnant of cultural mythology such as the vegetation myth (Benson 62, Speirs, 225), a demon, wild man (Benson, 72), and even the devil. Among these popular scholars, Larry Benson connects the Green Knight to the Green Man and Wild Man stories, which explain the knight’s ambiguous chivalrous and…

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem that truly examines our own sinful nature and the way we use social codes to mask them. The poem takes us through a narrative of a knight that is viewed as honorable by his society, but through a series of tests and a complex challenge his deceitfulness is shown and he is forced to acknowledge it. The text could be seen as a highlight of Gawain’s morality, but his one fault of lying to Bertilak of Hautdesert proves otherwise. There is an overwhelming…

Throughout the story, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, there is quite a bit of parallelism. The story rotates back and forth from the hunting scene, and the bedroom scene. Every morning Bertilak wakes up early, eats breakfast, goes to mass, then goes hunting, while Gawain is in charge of holding down the castle. The author uses parallelism to connect these two scenes by making an agreement between Sir Gawain and Bertilak. The agreement is that whatever Bertilak gets outside the walls he will…

The jeweler in The Pearl gains faith while Gawain loses his in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Pearl, the jeweler gains faith after his self-knowledge is tested. Gawain loses his when his faith is tested. What separates the two works is what is done with the newly acquired knowledge of self. The jeweler feels at peace within himself while Gawain uses the lesson to remind himself just how unfaithful he truly is. The jeweler of Pearl is between accepting what he knows and what is true…

has become a widely utilized theme in literature. When used as a theme or motif, nature liberates the reader’s minds, and opens up a new portal to understanding, resulting in myriad variations to many reader’s understandings of the concept of nature. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, written by Pearl Poet features many old English concepts. It is comprised of themes such as chivalry, order, and honor. All these themes are made obvious through the details in the dialogue. While all these themes…