Picnic table

Qualities that Make or Break a Character Coming from ancient times, tales of extraordinary godlike heroes captivated the minds of the listeners. Heroes expatiated became more so of the mundane. This is evident in the life of David Balfour in the novel “Kidnapped.” Davie is but a young boy of seventeen who is orphaned and left with no inheritance, his parents being of common means acquired such inconsequential wealth. Yet Davie has extensive correlation with heroes of early legends.…

Chivalry was the moral code that the noblemen of the middle ages strived to follow. This code outlined how a knight should behave in battle and to a greater extent how they should act at home. Gawain and the Green Knight and Marie De France’s Lanval can both be read as explorations of chivalry. Both works present chivalry as an impossible ideal rather than a fact of medieval life. Lanval, Gawain, and Arthur’s court are all pillars of the chivalric ideal, in Marie De France’s Lanval Arthur’s…

The Destination or The Journey “Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it yourself.” Walt Whitman once said in the Leaves of Grass. In life we partake in a lot of journeys, so my question is what is more important the journey or destination? Does the destination matter if your life is potentially over? And How could the destination be more important? Spiritual Journey is the progression of a person in understanding God, The world and there self. When knowing and…

invading Saxons. Arthur achieved this through a fellowship of knights who were sworn to Arthur’s cause – as well as to Arthur’s noble precepts of respect, honor, duty, service, valor, courtesy, and righteousness. These were the Knights of the Round Table. These were the men who followed Arthur’s rule – based upon their communal belief in the Arthurian chivalric code – a chivalric code that existed long before the High Middle Ages ever conceived of such, or…

Heros and villains are the backbones of literature. From Polyphemus in the Odyssey to Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, villains create conflict, create for contrast, add drama and excitement to stories, and serve as the drivers of the plotline. In different eras of literature, villains take on different shapes and sizes, and serve different purposes. In Medieval Literature, the purpose of a villain is to act as a foil for the hero character. In doing so, the villain brings out the…

How often do we think about where our family traditions started? It could be something our parents created or something that has been going on for many years. Some of the things we do might be cultural or are rooted from our religion. Hospitality is a tradition that has been shared around the world in the past and present. Part of the medieval Christian faith was to be hospitable because it was important to welcome strangers into your home. Gift giving was also a big part of the middle ages…

The fate of one 's life comes from actions and choices made during life. If one did good things in their life, they will get rewarded for their good deeds and vice versa. There are many theories of what exactly fate is, but in this case the hero 's fate is already determined, there are obstacles and actions people have to go through shaping their fate being good or bad, at the end our fate will come true. Referring to Beowulf and Sir Gawain, their fate was already predetermined, especially if…

journey, he faces many challenges, but he never loses his faith in God until it comes to live or death decision where he relies on magic. The poem is a classic chivalric ideology and the perfect example, with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table having those traits. Despite the fact that this is a chivalric poem the main focus is the test of faith. Where Sir Gawain’s faith, that is being tested by Lady Bertilak. She plays an important role in which she directly controls the situations…

Beowulf is a classical Old English epic poem that has everything an action packed story should have. There are monsters in the form of Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. There are also heroes that throughout the epic distinguish themselves from the other characters through battle and companionship. One main trait presented throughout is leadership and the most important leader in this epic is Beowulf. Beowulf is a strong warrior that maintains peace for his people as long as he is their…

Reality vs. Myth Sir Thomas Malory was influenced by the knights in his time to write Arthur becomes King. Sir Malory was born in Warwickshire, England, sometime around 1405. As a young man, Malory was a fairly wealthy landowner. He became a knight in 1442 and served in Parliament in 1445. He became involved in crime and allied himself politically with people and groups who opposed the royal government. He spent several years in prison for his crimes and political alle-giances while in prison…