Sir Kay

None of the women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight have any sort of agency. In order for agency to exist, it must be seen and also validated. To be seen means that the woman is visualized actually doing something. She talks, moves, and influences events. To be validated means that the women’s actions/words/influences are recognized, or at the very least, not demeaned. Guinevere is neither seen nor validated, the Lady is only seen, and Morgan le Fay is spoken about, but she is not validated.…

as a physical act we also can see that it can happen internally in a person’s mind or within their emotions. War can also be infectious, it can sometimes creep into all parts of a person both internal and externally. In stories like Beowulf, Lanval, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath the concept of war is seen as disease that takes over the body, the mind, and the heart. The physical part of war is the most well-known aspect of war. It is what…

Ladies, Love, and Lust? (Concept of Chivalry) Chivalry is a moral code that was used by knights many, many, many years ago. It was a thane or a retainer or for a lack of better words, a warrior code. There are two ways that chivalry can be displayed. One is through the individual. It requires a balanced soul which consists of honesty, integrity, courage, sacrifice, generosity, and humility. The second way is collective or communal. In the code of chivalry used by knights, women are highly…

interpreting a piece of literature has a deeper meaning. Comparing and contrasting a piece to each other also brings up similar ideas and reoccurring themes that lead to drawing conclusions about human nature. While working with the poems Beowulf, Lanval, and Sir Gawain within their genres, I find that conditions within societies form a need of a hero figure but that hero varies with values of society and within different times in one’s life as seen with Northrop Frye’s idea of seasons…

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…

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 court is said to have, “had no equal in all the world”(154) and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Arthur’s court is said to consist of, “the most courteous and chivalrous knights known to christendom;”(). Lanval was one of Arthur’s best knights he was envied, “for his valor, for his generosity,/his beauty and his…

In the book Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a book about a green knight, King Arthur and Sir Gawain who is King Arthur’s nephew. The Green Knight mocks the people cruelly, calling out King Arthur to take challenge to have someone step up and strike the Green Knights with his own axe. The catch was that the person who struck him would have to the Green Knight a year later and allow him to hit the person with an axe in return. King Arthur had stepped up to the challenge but Sir Gawain stepped…

Introduction While the word chivalry is associated with gentlemanly behavior today, in the Middle Ages it was the code of knightly conduct that encompassed religious, moral, and social aspects. It was the way medieval knights were expected to behave both in society and on the battlefield. It is important to note, however, that a knight was not just any soldier, he was the mounted warrior of medieval times. Being a knight refers to being part of the cavalry and was a highly respected position,…

This week’s discussion focuses upon Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I will herein go beyond the recitations of the story itself and address the story “between the lines:” Morgan le Fay hated King Arthur, and especially Queen Guinevere. Arthur was the half-brother of Morgan. Arthur was born as the result of a “magical” deception of Merlin, his Uncle (and the understood “Wizard of the Realm”). Morgan bemoaned that her father, the Duke of Cornwall, was killed so Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon,…

villains can be seen in three different Medieval texts: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Laustic, and The Song of Roland. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the villain- the Green Knight, sends the hero character Sir Gawain on both a physical journey and test, as well as a journey and test of character. The Green Knight enters the court of King Arthur on Christmas in order to challenge and test the character of the Arthurian knights. Sir Gawain volunteers to take upon the challenge, and…