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The Works of the Gawain Poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Patience, Cleanness (Penguin Classics) by Anonymous
For students of Middle English, Andrew and Waldron’s The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript has been the key edition of the four Pearl poems for over thirty years. With the changing needs of today’s university student in mind, The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript is presented in a fully updated and comprehensively revised version fit for the twenty-first century. Including a new introduction providing historical, literary, and cultural contexts for the poems, as well as a revised and updated bibliography, the fully revised Fifth Edition significantly revises and updates the explanatory notes, as well as makes minor changes to the text and glossary themselves. In addition, the authors have provided for the first time a complete prose translation of the four poems—Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—included on a CD-ROM at the back of the book for students to use as a working tool. This timely revision ensures the continued quality and consummate translation that students and scholars have come to expect from the Andrew-Waldron edition.
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First published January 1, 1400
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February 16, 2021
With Wordes Ful Mony
Although it usually takes me quite some time and concentration to read it, I have always had a soft spot for Middle English poetry because I think there is a lot of beauty and power in those old texts, especially when you read them aloud. So I thought it high time to start reading the works of the Gawain poet, whose most famous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I remembered from my university days. Luckily, there is a Penguin edition which comprises all of his four poems:
Pearl
The edition starts with the allegorical poem Pearl in which the author – here we may safely assume a conflation of author and lyrical persona – tells us about a dream, a ”veray avysoun”, of his in which he converses with his late daughter, who died aged two, on the banks of a beautiful river. The poem is inspired by Christian piety and has the daughter, the author’s Pearl, appear as one of the 144,000 virgin brides of the Lamb we find mentioned in Revelation, and although she is now a beautiful woman, bedecked in clothes studded with pearls, the father immediately recognizes his daughter, but the ensuing conversation during which the Pearl explains to her father the world of bliss she has entered makes it clear that he as a mortal man has no grasp of the laws governing the world beyond because he mainly sees her as an individual, his lost daughter, whom he loves and cherishes, whereas she is now part of a heavenly host. The person he once rocked on his knee is no more, and the father has difficulty reconciling himself with that concept. Finally, when on an impulse he tries to cross the river separating himself and Pearl in order to get closer to the person he loves and whom, with a father’s eye, he spots among the host of virgins, he destroys the vision and finds himself alone at the foot of her grave.
For all the religious teachings, the glimpses into life after death, the daughter offers, Pearl is anything but a formulaic poem in that you can sense the bitterness and despair of the father’s grief, who has to realize that even in their long home, he will probably never recover his daughter as he knew her. It is thus a poignantly personal poem and it leaves no doubt about the impossibility for a mortal being to get a clear understanding of death, and maybe also to find comfort in the thought that there is a life after death. On the surface, the father submits to God’s will, when he says,
but his despair is clearly palatable. It does go to a reader’s heart to sense the genuine anguish of a man who poured it into words centuries ago.
Saying that, I think that the Gawain Poet bears comparison with Chaucer on any level, whose language is more elegant and refined, in that there is a sterling quality about the style of this man from the North-West Midlands. Just take the following example, where he describes the riverside of his dream, whose beauty still carries memories of the sadder waking world:
Cleanness
Cleanness is a homiletic poem, i.e. its aim is to illustrate the importance of chastity with the help of examples taken from the Bible. The poem is rather long and falls into three major parts, each of which centring on one particular example of how God wreaked his ire on those who allowed themselves to be degraded by wantonness and filth – in the first part, the poet tells the story of Noah and the Great Flood, in the second, we hear of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Loth’s escape, and the final part gives us the story of the Babylonian king Belshazzar and the Writing on the Wall. In dealing with these well-known Biblical tales, the poem deftly plays out his narrative and descriptive skills, when instead of simply sticking to the details given in the original texts, he enlarges on certain side aspects as for example the suffering of humans and animals when the waters are rising, or how the Persians infiltrate Babylon at night and kill the king in his bed. The vividness of these familiar stories bears impressive testimony to the Gawain poet’s imagination and his ability to imbue the Biblical texts with new vigour. What is theologically interesting is his idea of God as rather prone to the deadly sin of wrath when it comes to balancing accounts with people who are wallowing in the meaner passions of wantonness and depravity. It seems that God, Who is normally pictured as a serene and just Father, is quite apt to lose His temper in these situations. To make his point clearer, the poet, even describes Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered Jerusalem and robbed the temple vessels, as sensible enough not to desecrate them, and that is why God’s punishment of Nebuchadnezzar allowed for the chance of redemption, which is not granted to his more obtuse and lecherous son.
Patience
Next to Cleanness, Patience is the other of the two homiletic poems written by the Gawain Poet, and like its counterpart it sets out to exemplify the good of a Christian virtue by means of a Bible story. By “patience” the author means a certain fortitude of spirit which enables you to bear suffering or the prospect of it, since the pains afflicted by life will be even harder to endure if you rebel against them. Likewise, a patient person does not give in too readily to the urge to rejoice overmuch over any good that befalls them, knowing that life is fickle and may easily withdraw the bounties you are making so much of. The Gawain Poet here tells the story of the reluctant prophet Jonah, who fears for his life when he is ordained to go and tell the people in Ninive some quite unpleasant things and who prefers to make a bolt for it – with the well-known results. Patience is a remarkable poem in that its author goes to great lengths in order to give a realistic idea of what is going on with Jonah, and he even includes details like the nilly-willy prophet’s snoring in the bowels of the ship, complete with the sleeper’s saliva drivelling out of his mouth. All in all, this is not a very prepossessing image of a venerable prophet.
To top it all, the Gawain Poet is well aware of the fact that after being vomited onto the shore by the fish, Jonah might not have been too palatable to people’s eyes and noses:
”Then he swepe to the sonde / in sluchchede clothes;
Hit may wel be that mester were / his mantyle to wasche!”
Apart from that, Jonah is not only a sorry sight to look at, but he also behaves like most of us would have behaved: After the people of Ninive are granted God’s pardon due to their penance, Jonah starts pouting and tells God that he knew all along that He would spare them after all, and this now makes him seem like a liar, which is why he never wanted to go there in the first place. Unlike in the Bible story, however, we know from the poem that Jonah’s actual motive for shunning God’s errand was his concern about his personal safety, and that only in retrospect does he credit himself with more refined motives. In other words, the Gawain Poet not only has a wonderful eye for detail and the skill to put it into marvellous language, but also deep psychological insight into human nature.
Next to the Green Knight, this is the best poem in the collection, if you ask me.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is the last of the four poems which are commonly ascribed to the anonymous “Pearl Poet” or “Gawain Poet”, and it is probably the best-known and the only one of them which is clearly secular in nature. The story begins on New Year’s Eve when King Arthur and his court have assembled for a sumptuous banquet and suddenly a rather rude stranger, clad in green and armed with a Danish axe, appears and challenges the knights in the following manner: Who is there among the knights that dares deal him a fell blow with that axe and then receive a counter-blow by him – if a counter-blow can still be made – after the lapse of one year and a day? As everyone present is astounded at this seemingly crazy challenge, Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew, rises to the occasion, in order to defend the honour of the court, the Green Knight taking their inaction for cowardice instead of amazement, and he merrily chops of the rude knight’s head. But lo! the mysterious stranger picks up his head, carries it nonchalantly by the hair and fixes an appointment with Sir Gawain: By New Year’s Eve next year, Gawain is to make his appearance at the Green Chapel and endure the knight’s retaliation, the only unsettling detail being that Gawain is not able to do that trick of carrying his head around. Nevertheless, he feels himself bound by his promise and seeks out his adversary, but on his way to the Green Chapel, he stops at a castle, whose lord offers him to host him for Christmas there and then tell him the way to the place he is looking for. Gawain and the lord enter into a friendly covenant, which obliges the host to give up to his guest the quarry of his hunts in return for whatever Gawain, who is to stay at the castle and to recover from his travels, will receive in the course of the day. Now, the following three days, the lord of the castle and his merry men go hunting, and while they are roaming the forests, the lord’s wife, a beautiful damsel, does her own bit of hunting, too. Morning after morning, she enters Gawain’s bedroom where she tries to seduce him. The good knight knows that it would be a betrayal both to his own codices of honour and to his host’s trust, to sleep with the man’s wife, but courtly etiquette, and his reputation as a womanizer, also demand that he be not impolite to a lady, and so he cannot simply tell her to cut it out. Instead, he enters on the terrain of elegantly parrying all her advances without snubbing her, and they pass their time in agreeable conversation. When the host arrives later in the day and presents Gawain with the animals he has hunted, the good knight returns him the kisses – given in decency – he received from the lady, without telling him where he got them. So far so good. But on the last day, the lady urges Gawain to accept a gift as a love-token, a request that Gawain elegantly turns down – until the lady offers him a girdle of hers which has the power to protect its owner from blows, cuts and other injuries. Gawain, afraid for his life during the encounter with the Green Knight, cannot resist this temptation and accepts the girdle, and what is more, he fails to hand it out to the host, thus breaking their covenant. When, a few days later, he meets his opponent at the Green Chapel, Gawain is in for a surprise …
Sir Gawain is probably one of the best-known chivalric romances, and at the same time it struck me as uncommonly modern. This was because for all his prowess and principle, its protagonist is anything but a faultless knight in shining armour and we do not go through just another tale of heroic achievement. Gawain, like most of us would be, is quite afraid for his life when he anticipates his encounter with the Green Knight in which it is incumbent on him to receive the first blow kneeling, with the nape of his neck offered to the blow of the axe. In other words, the deal he made with the Green Knight and to which his honour makes him stick, is going to send him to his certain death. Knowing this, and hoping to miraculously escape, Gawain accepts the girdle, although this means breaking the promise he made to his host, i.e. to exchange whatever he received in the course of the day for the host’s gifts. Gawain’s tragedy lies in the fact that both the Green Knight and King Arthur and his followers regard this failure to keep his word as a venial sin, since it was committed with a view to preserve his own life – and in this they are backed up by the theological authority of Thomas Aquinas, who said that a sin is diminished if it was motivated by fear for one’s life. Gawain himself, however, cannot find it in himself to see his lapse in such a reconciliatory light because all that counts for him is that he did not manage to live up to his own set of values, and he decides to wear the girdle as a sign of his shame henceforth.
This tension between societal values and one’s own individual convictions makes Gawain a fascinating, rather modern figure and also gives the poem the power to still speak to us modern readers. Even before he received the girdle, Gawain was in a dilemma: His own truthfulness and loyalty - ”trauthe” - required him to fend the enticing lady off, whereas courtly etiquette - ”courtaysye” - made it impossible for him to bluntly tell the lady that he was not interested in her, and so he entered into a game at the end of which he was offered that alluring girdle. Gawain’s dilemma is quite a modern one since most of us have probably often found ourselves in a situation in which society obliged us to profess to an idea that in our heart of hearts we felt to be a lie, or at least to swallow this lie. This may be especially true in an age whose hallmark is the cheap moralization of political life, and it may well have been easier for Gawain to rebuff the obtrusive lady than it is for us to speak what we regard as truth in an age of public indignation.
While it is fascinating to discover parallels to modern life in a text that is 600 years old, the poem is also worth reading because of the author’s masterly use of language and his ability to conjure up a certain atmosphere. Personally, I’d say that the Gawain poet is able to maintain a standard of intensity and genuineness that Chaucer, doubtless the more elegant poet of the two, achieves at times only, for instance in The Franklin’s Tale. Here is a passage that tells us how Gawain, on arriving at the Green Chapel, hears the sound of his opponent’s whetting his weapon:
(to be continued in the comment section)
Although it usually takes me quite some time and concentration to read it, I have always had a soft spot for Middle English poetry because I think there is a lot of beauty and power in those old texts, especially when you read them aloud. So I thought it high time to start reading the works of the Gawain poet, whose most famous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I remembered from my university days. Luckily, there is a Penguin edition which comprises all of his four poems:
Pearl
The edition starts with the allegorical poem Pearl in which the author – here we may safely assume a conflation of author and lyrical persona – tells us about a dream, a ”veray avysoun”, of his in which he converses with his late daughter, who died aged two, on the banks of a beautiful river. The poem is inspired by Christian piety and has the daughter, the author’s Pearl, appear as one of the 144,000 virgin brides of the Lamb we find mentioned in Revelation, and although she is now a beautiful woman, bedecked in clothes studded with pearls, the father immediately recognizes his daughter, but the ensuing conversation during which the Pearl explains to her father the world of bliss she has entered makes it clear that he as a mortal man has no grasp of the laws governing the world beyond because he mainly sees her as an individual, his lost daughter, whom he loves and cherishes, whereas she is now part of a heavenly host. The person he once rocked on his knee is no more, and the father has difficulty reconciling himself with that concept. Finally, when on an impulse he tries to cross the river separating himself and Pearl in order to get closer to the person he loves and whom, with a father’s eye, he spots among the host of virgins, he destroys the vision and finds himself alone at the foot of her grave.
For all the religious teachings, the glimpses into life after death, the daughter offers, Pearl is anything but a formulaic poem in that you can sense the bitterness and despair of the father’s grief, who has to realize that even in their long home, he will probably never recover his daughter as he knew her. It is thus a poignantly personal poem and it leaves no doubt about the impossibility for a mortal being to get a clear understanding of death, and maybe also to find comfort in the thought that there is a life after death. On the surface, the father submits to God’s will, when he says,
”Lord, mad hit are that agayns thee stryven
Or proferen thee oght agayns thy pay”,
but his despair is clearly palatable. It does go to a reader’s heart to sense the genuine anguish of a man who poured it into words centuries ago.
Saying that, I think that the Gawain Poet bears comparison with Chaucer on any level, whose language is more elegant and refined, in that there is a sterling quality about the style of this man from the North-West Midlands. Just take the following example, where he describes the riverside of his dream, whose beauty still carries memories of the sadder waking world:
”The dubbement of tho derworth depe
Were bonkes bene of beryl bryght.
Swangeande swete the water con swepe,
With a rounande rurk raykande aryght.
In the founs there stonden stones stepe,
As glent thurgh glasse that glowed and glyght,
As stremande sternes, when strothe-men slepe,
Staren in welkyn in wynter night;
For uch a pobbel in pole there pyght
Was emerad, saffer, or gemme gent,
That all the logh lemed of lyght,
So dere was hit adubbement.”
Cleanness
Cleanness is a homiletic poem, i.e. its aim is to illustrate the importance of chastity with the help of examples taken from the Bible. The poem is rather long and falls into three major parts, each of which centring on one particular example of how God wreaked his ire on those who allowed themselves to be degraded by wantonness and filth – in the first part, the poet tells the story of Noah and the Great Flood, in the second, we hear of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Loth’s escape, and the final part gives us the story of the Babylonian king Belshazzar and the Writing on the Wall. In dealing with these well-known Biblical tales, the poem deftly plays out his narrative and descriptive skills, when instead of simply sticking to the details given in the original texts, he enlarges on certain side aspects as for example the suffering of humans and animals when the waters are rising, or how the Persians infiltrate Babylon at night and kill the king in his bed. The vividness of these familiar stories bears impressive testimony to the Gawain poet’s imagination and his ability to imbue the Biblical texts with new vigour. What is theologically interesting is his idea of God as rather prone to the deadly sin of wrath when it comes to balancing accounts with people who are wallowing in the meaner passions of wantonness and depravity. It seems that God, Who is normally pictured as a serene and just Father, is quite apt to lose His temper in these situations. To make his point clearer, the poet, even describes Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered Jerusalem and robbed the temple vessels, as sensible enough not to desecrate them, and that is why God’s punishment of Nebuchadnezzar allowed for the chance of redemption, which is not granted to his more obtuse and lecherous son.
Patience
Next to Cleanness, Patience is the other of the two homiletic poems written by the Gawain Poet, and like its counterpart it sets out to exemplify the good of a Christian virtue by means of a Bible story. By “patience” the author means a certain fortitude of spirit which enables you to bear suffering or the prospect of it, since the pains afflicted by life will be even harder to endure if you rebel against them. Likewise, a patient person does not give in too readily to the urge to rejoice overmuch over any good that befalls them, knowing that life is fickle and may easily withdraw the bounties you are making so much of. The Gawain Poet here tells the story of the reluctant prophet Jonah, who fears for his life when he is ordained to go and tell the people in Ninive some quite unpleasant things and who prefers to make a bolt for it – with the well-known results. Patience is a remarkable poem in that its author goes to great lengths in order to give a realistic idea of what is going on with Jonah, and he even includes details like the nilly-willy prophet’s snoring in the bowels of the ship, complete with the sleeper’s saliva drivelling out of his mouth. All in all, this is not a very prepossessing image of a venerable prophet.
To top it all, the Gawain Poet is well aware of the fact that after being vomited onto the shore by the fish, Jonah might not have been too palatable to people’s eyes and noses:
”Then he swepe to the sonde / in sluchchede clothes;
Hit may wel be that mester were / his mantyle to wasche!”
Apart from that, Jonah is not only a sorry sight to look at, but he also behaves like most of us would have behaved: After the people of Ninive are granted God’s pardon due to their penance, Jonah starts pouting and tells God that he knew all along that He would spare them after all, and this now makes him seem like a liar, which is why he never wanted to go there in the first place. Unlike in the Bible story, however, we know from the poem that Jonah’s actual motive for shunning God’s errand was his concern about his personal safety, and that only in retrospect does he credit himself with more refined motives. In other words, the Gawain Poet not only has a wonderful eye for detail and the skill to put it into marvellous language, but also deep psychological insight into human nature.
Next to the Green Knight, this is the best poem in the collection, if you ask me.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is the last of the four poems which are commonly ascribed to the anonymous “Pearl Poet” or “Gawain Poet”, and it is probably the best-known and the only one of them which is clearly secular in nature. The story begins on New Year’s Eve when King Arthur and his court have assembled for a sumptuous banquet and suddenly a rather rude stranger, clad in green and armed with a Danish axe, appears and challenges the knights in the following manner: Who is there among the knights that dares deal him a fell blow with that axe and then receive a counter-blow by him – if a counter-blow can still be made – after the lapse of one year and a day? As everyone present is astounded at this seemingly crazy challenge, Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew, rises to the occasion, in order to defend the honour of the court, the Green Knight taking their inaction for cowardice instead of amazement, and he merrily chops of the rude knight’s head. But lo! the mysterious stranger picks up his head, carries it nonchalantly by the hair and fixes an appointment with Sir Gawain: By New Year’s Eve next year, Gawain is to make his appearance at the Green Chapel and endure the knight’s retaliation, the only unsettling detail being that Gawain is not able to do that trick of carrying his head around. Nevertheless, he feels himself bound by his promise and seeks out his adversary, but on his way to the Green Chapel, he stops at a castle, whose lord offers him to host him for Christmas there and then tell him the way to the place he is looking for. Gawain and the lord enter into a friendly covenant, which obliges the host to give up to his guest the quarry of his hunts in return for whatever Gawain, who is to stay at the castle and to recover from his travels, will receive in the course of the day. Now, the following three days, the lord of the castle and his merry men go hunting, and while they are roaming the forests, the lord’s wife, a beautiful damsel, does her own bit of hunting, too. Morning after morning, she enters Gawain’s bedroom where she tries to seduce him. The good knight knows that it would be a betrayal both to his own codices of honour and to his host’s trust, to sleep with the man’s wife, but courtly etiquette, and his reputation as a womanizer, also demand that he be not impolite to a lady, and so he cannot simply tell her to cut it out. Instead, he enters on the terrain of elegantly parrying all her advances without snubbing her, and they pass their time in agreeable conversation. When the host arrives later in the day and presents Gawain with the animals he has hunted, the good knight returns him the kisses – given in decency – he received from the lady, without telling him where he got them. So far so good. But on the last day, the lady urges Gawain to accept a gift as a love-token, a request that Gawain elegantly turns down – until the lady offers him a girdle of hers which has the power to protect its owner from blows, cuts and other injuries. Gawain, afraid for his life during the encounter with the Green Knight, cannot resist this temptation and accepts the girdle, and what is more, he fails to hand it out to the host, thus breaking their covenant. When, a few days later, he meets his opponent at the Green Chapel, Gawain is in for a surprise …
Sir Gawain is probably one of the best-known chivalric romances, and at the same time it struck me as uncommonly modern. This was because for all his prowess and principle, its protagonist is anything but a faultless knight in shining armour and we do not go through just another tale of heroic achievement. Gawain, like most of us would be, is quite afraid for his life when he anticipates his encounter with the Green Knight in which it is incumbent on him to receive the first blow kneeling, with the nape of his neck offered to the blow of the axe. In other words, the deal he made with the Green Knight and to which his honour makes him stick, is going to send him to his certain death. Knowing this, and hoping to miraculously escape, Gawain accepts the girdle, although this means breaking the promise he made to his host, i.e. to exchange whatever he received in the course of the day for the host’s gifts. Gawain’s tragedy lies in the fact that both the Green Knight and King Arthur and his followers regard this failure to keep his word as a venial sin, since it was committed with a view to preserve his own life – and in this they are backed up by the theological authority of Thomas Aquinas, who said that a sin is diminished if it was motivated by fear for one’s life. Gawain himself, however, cannot find it in himself to see his lapse in such a reconciliatory light because all that counts for him is that he did not manage to live up to his own set of values, and he decides to wear the girdle as a sign of his shame henceforth.
This tension between societal values and one’s own individual convictions makes Gawain a fascinating, rather modern figure and also gives the poem the power to still speak to us modern readers. Even before he received the girdle, Gawain was in a dilemma: His own truthfulness and loyalty - ”trauthe” - required him to fend the enticing lady off, whereas courtly etiquette - ”courtaysye” - made it impossible for him to bluntly tell the lady that he was not interested in her, and so he entered into a game at the end of which he was offered that alluring girdle. Gawain’s dilemma is quite a modern one since most of us have probably often found ourselves in a situation in which society obliged us to profess to an idea that in our heart of hearts we felt to be a lie, or at least to swallow this lie. This may be especially true in an age whose hallmark is the cheap moralization of political life, and it may well have been easier for Gawain to rebuff the obtrusive lady than it is for us to speak what we regard as truth in an age of public indignation.
While it is fascinating to discover parallels to modern life in a text that is 600 years old, the poem is also worth reading because of the author’s masterly use of language and his ability to conjure up a certain atmosphere. Personally, I’d say that the Gawain poet is able to maintain a standard of intensity and genuineness that Chaucer, doubtless the more elegant poet of the two, achieves at times only, for instance in The Franklin’s Tale. Here is a passage that tells us how Gawain, on arriving at the Green Chapel, hears the sound of his opponent’s whetting his weapon:
”Then herd he of that highe hille, in a hard roche,
Biyonde the brok in a bonk, a wonder breme noyse.
What! hit clatered in the clyff as hit cleve schulde,
As one upon a gryndelston had grounden a sythe;
What! hit warred and whette as water at a mulne;
What! hit rusched and ronge, routhe to here.”
(to be continued in the comment section)
January 17, 2018
Pearl
Previously familiar to me from Tolkien's translation.
It's tough going for the uninitiated, using original spelling (i.e. thorn, yogh, "u" for "v" etc.) and the dialect makes it even more difficult. I found it harder going even than Piers Plowman which itself is more demanding than Chaucer's dialect.
The poem is a dream-vision, as is Piers Plowman. Such visions also occur in Middle English Romances, e.g. the Sege of Melayne but they are of starkly contrasting nature. Piers and Pearl are both pious works, tackling serious theological questions and inhabiting a Christian space of serious reflection on Jesus' moral message, where-as the Romances tend towards psychopathic mass murder of Saracens/Muslims as the way to go if you want to get to heaven...
Here the author describes a man finding comfort in a dream of his recently deceased young daughter having come to Heaven and everlasting joy. It seems more tender and personal than Piers, leading many to assume that the dreamer and the dead girl are in fact the author and his daughter. It's also more accessible than Piers in that the theological discussions are at least conducted in (Middle) English as opposed to the continual Latin Biblical quotes of Piers - it's also a lot shorter!
Whilst I feel that the author is essentially telling himself a fairy tale in order to assuage his own grief, I can appreciate his feelings of love and loss and unfairness and they are set down in a way that sounds delightful if you can get your ear well enough attuned.
Cleanness
I enjoyed this a lot more than Pearl. It's more or less a sermon on the necessity for "cleneness" of spirit if one wants to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, illustrated by three Old Testament tales; Noah and the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and finally The Writing on the Wall. Not being Christian, the framing sermon is of little interest to me, but the Bible stories were great, because of the way they were re-told. The poet feels no need to restrict himself to the limits of the source and adds details and imagery from both common folklore and his own imagination. These add a great deal and show off the author's impressive descriptive powers - powers that did not really shine through in Pearl because of its very limited and oft repeated palette of metaphor. Here, however, diverse and vivid imagery abounds, along with little details that delight, e.g. the idea of Lot's wife being used as a salt lick by cattle after she foolishly turns to look at the destruction of the cities behind her.
Patience
The shortest of the four poems in the manuscript has more in common with Cleanness than the other two, since it follows the same format of a sermon followed by an "examplum" Biblical story. Here we have the tale of Jonah retold in the same style as the stories appearing in Cleanness, with embellishments, delightful imagery (sailors holding Jonah's feet while the whale has his head in its mouth stands out) and a verve that lacks in the original source. I would strongly recommend starting here rather than with Pearl if you want to find out how good the Gawain Poet can be.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is, of course, the main event; what brought me to be reading this book in the first place. Twice as long as the next longest poem in the manuscript, in four parts and comprised of 101 stanzas. It's fundamentally different in approach to the other three poems. It's neither a dream-vision nor a sermon with exempla. Instead it is a Romance. No, not one of those preposterous billionaire alpha-hole marries shy and retiring introvert romances, a knights and ladies and preposterous adventures Romance. It is, however, still deeply informed by Christianity. Going by the extant Middle English poetry, there were really two major strands of Christian philosophy in the Mediaeval period. One was a gung-ho "we're better than everyone else and we'll slaughter you if you disagree in order to prove it," approach as exemplified by Romances such as The Sege of Melayne, in which the clergy form their own army to fight Saracen invaders. Another was a philosophical and introspective approach involving serious Bible study with a focus on the moral teachings of Jesus in particular, as exemplified by the lengthy Piers Plowman. Now, Gawain and the Green Knight has all the trappings of a Romance, what with a giant green knight with a green horse who can survive being beheaded turning up at King Arthur's Court, cavemen living in the wilds, a mysterious castle in the back of beyond and a witch who lives there, but it also clearly takes Christianity more seriously than just a tribal label to fight for, "My God is better than your God!"
This is first advertised fairly early on by the symbolism of the pentagram on Gawain's shield and the portrait of the Virgin Mary on its inside, then made clear when Gawain, despairing of ever finding the Green Chapel, mired in the wilds, suffering from being away from civilisation for months and running out of time, prays to Mary and finds an unfamiliar castle soon after. But the whole adventure is a series of tests. The over-arching requirement to attend an appointment with what one can reasonably only expect to be one's own death is a test of honour and bravery and the quest to find the Green Chapel is a test of commitment in the face of physical suffering and danger, with no guarantee of success, that is only passed through an act of Christian faith. (The prayer to Mary.) After arriving at Bertilak's castle and being assured that the Green Chapel is nearby and he can rest and relax, Gawain is in fact even more thoroughly morally examined. He's wooed continuously by Bertilak's wife and tempted to cheat on a silly game he's agreed to play with Bertilak. The temptation is enormous because it could turn out to be the only way Gawain can survive beyond the next day - and he succumbs to speaking a lie in order to try to preserve his own life. Gawain passes every test he's put through except this one. All of this is about faith, Christian and chivalric virtue and courtly manners, not about conquering the infidel in the name of the Lord. This, in the context of three other poems that treat themes of faith and personal virtue as the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven leads me to the strong conviction that what we have here is a deliberate and conscious subversion of the populist, xenophobic, intolerant and mostly plain silly Romance form to the ends of serious Christian moral instruction, written by a devout believer. Which leads to the question of what lesson we are supposed to learn.
In the introduction, Andrews and Waldron point out that there are three views expressed about Gawain's lie/cheat in the swapping game:
Gawain's own view is that it is a disaster that has ruined his honour forever. Whilst he ruefully complains about how women through history have tempted men to ruin, with examples such as Adam and Eve and Sampson and Delilah (note - Biblical cases) he also says he is going to openly wear the girdle that cost him his honour as an antidote to future pride and a spur to greater humility. He doesn't seem to be seriously saying the moral fault lies with anybody but himself. And it's a major fault.
Bertilak, instigator of this whole series of events, who openly admits that they were deliberately intended as a test of Arthur's court and it's reputation, is more forgiving. He says that Gawain's lie/cheat was trivial in the circumstances and fully repaid by the cut to the neck Gawain received (which it's later hinted leaves a permanent scar). That was punishment enough, given the threat to Gawain's life and his passing of all the more serious tests. Gawain should forget about it - he and Arthur's court are vindicated.
Finally, the knights back home take the view that the whole adventure redounds greatly and solely to the benefit of the reputation of Arthur's court and don't take the girdle incident at all seriously.
Who was right? What did the Pearl Poet think? Tolkien, in the intro to his translation, infers that the point is that courtly manners are entirely secondary to genuine Christian morals and that the fact that Gawain is not seduced by Bertilak's wife is what really counts. This might well be true. The Poet certainly never overtly states an opinion to the contrary. I can't help thinking, though, that the fact that Gawain wears the girdle as a reminder of past failure is actually the key lesson, because it fits so well with what is going on in the other poems. What Gawain learns is greater humility and not to pride himself on his honour but to try to do better in the future. Striving for self-improvement and forgiveness of past failure are major moral tenets of non-fundamentalist interpretations of Jesus' message and that's what happens: Bertilak forgives and Gawain goes forward trying to do better in future.
Overview of the whole book
Wow! I knew this was going to be a challenge but didn't think it could be tougher than Piers Plowman. In fact the only ways in which Piers was harder were in over-all length and the heavy use of Latin that I simply don't know at all. Reading all four poems was a really worth-while exercise not solely because each has its merits but because taking them together informs each one individually. This was especially true of Gawain and I strongly recommend reading it last, rather than skipping the others or reading them after. This also has the incidental benefit of the reader having developed some familiarity with the obscure and difficult dialect and spelling that make Chaucer look like a book for kindergardeners. Pearl is the dullest, though most personal and heart-felt, of all the poems and lacks the story-telling verve and exciting and varied imagery of the others, so maybe don't start there, either. The re-tellings of Bible stories are the highlights of the other two poems and some of the scenes and images in those will stay with me just as long as any of the crazy events in Gawain.
So - hard work but amply repaid and a long standing ambition achieved!
Previously familiar to me from Tolkien's translation.
It's tough going for the uninitiated, using original spelling (i.e. thorn, yogh, "u" for "v" etc.) and the dialect makes it even more difficult. I found it harder going even than Piers Plowman which itself is more demanding than Chaucer's dialect.
The poem is a dream-vision, as is Piers Plowman. Such visions also occur in Middle English Romances, e.g. the Sege of Melayne but they are of starkly contrasting nature. Piers and Pearl are both pious works, tackling serious theological questions and inhabiting a Christian space of serious reflection on Jesus' moral message, where-as the Romances tend towards psychopathic mass murder of Saracens/Muslims as the way to go if you want to get to heaven...
Here the author describes a man finding comfort in a dream of his recently deceased young daughter having come to Heaven and everlasting joy. It seems more tender and personal than Piers, leading many to assume that the dreamer and the dead girl are in fact the author and his daughter. It's also more accessible than Piers in that the theological discussions are at least conducted in (Middle) English as opposed to the continual Latin Biblical quotes of Piers - it's also a lot shorter!
Whilst I feel that the author is essentially telling himself a fairy tale in order to assuage his own grief, I can appreciate his feelings of love and loss and unfairness and they are set down in a way that sounds delightful if you can get your ear well enough attuned.
Cleanness
I enjoyed this a lot more than Pearl. It's more or less a sermon on the necessity for "cleneness" of spirit if one wants to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, illustrated by three Old Testament tales; Noah and the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and finally The Writing on the Wall. Not being Christian, the framing sermon is of little interest to me, but the Bible stories were great, because of the way they were re-told. The poet feels no need to restrict himself to the limits of the source and adds details and imagery from both common folklore and his own imagination. These add a great deal and show off the author's impressive descriptive powers - powers that did not really shine through in Pearl because of its very limited and oft repeated palette of metaphor. Here, however, diverse and vivid imagery abounds, along with little details that delight, e.g. the idea of Lot's wife being used as a salt lick by cattle after she foolishly turns to look at the destruction of the cities behind her.
Patience
The shortest of the four poems in the manuscript has more in common with Cleanness than the other two, since it follows the same format of a sermon followed by an "examplum" Biblical story. Here we have the tale of Jonah retold in the same style as the stories appearing in Cleanness, with embellishments, delightful imagery (sailors holding Jonah's feet while the whale has his head in its mouth stands out) and a verve that lacks in the original source. I would strongly recommend starting here rather than with Pearl if you want to find out how good the Gawain Poet can be.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is, of course, the main event; what brought me to be reading this book in the first place. Twice as long as the next longest poem in the manuscript, in four parts and comprised of 101 stanzas. It's fundamentally different in approach to the other three poems. It's neither a dream-vision nor a sermon with exempla. Instead it is a Romance. No, not one of those preposterous billionaire alpha-hole marries shy and retiring introvert romances, a knights and ladies and preposterous adventures Romance. It is, however, still deeply informed by Christianity. Going by the extant Middle English poetry, there were really two major strands of Christian philosophy in the Mediaeval period. One was a gung-ho "we're better than everyone else and we'll slaughter you if you disagree in order to prove it," approach as exemplified by Romances such as The Sege of Melayne, in which the clergy form their own army to fight Saracen invaders. Another was a philosophical and introspective approach involving serious Bible study with a focus on the moral teachings of Jesus in particular, as exemplified by the lengthy Piers Plowman. Now, Gawain and the Green Knight has all the trappings of a Romance, what with a giant green knight with a green horse who can survive being beheaded turning up at King Arthur's Court, cavemen living in the wilds, a mysterious castle in the back of beyond and a witch who lives there, but it also clearly takes Christianity more seriously than just a tribal label to fight for, "My God is better than your God!"
This is first advertised fairly early on by the symbolism of the pentagram on Gawain's shield and the portrait of the Virgin Mary on its inside, then made clear when Gawain, despairing of ever finding the Green Chapel, mired in the wilds, suffering from being away from civilisation for months and running out of time, prays to Mary and finds an unfamiliar castle soon after. But the whole adventure is a series of tests. The over-arching requirement to attend an appointment with what one can reasonably only expect to be one's own death is a test of honour and bravery and the quest to find the Green Chapel is a test of commitment in the face of physical suffering and danger, with no guarantee of success, that is only passed through an act of Christian faith. (The prayer to Mary.) After arriving at Bertilak's castle and being assured that the Green Chapel is nearby and he can rest and relax, Gawain is in fact even more thoroughly morally examined. He's wooed continuously by Bertilak's wife and tempted to cheat on a silly game he's agreed to play with Bertilak. The temptation is enormous because it could turn out to be the only way Gawain can survive beyond the next day - and he succumbs to speaking a lie in order to try to preserve his own life. Gawain passes every test he's put through except this one. All of this is about faith, Christian and chivalric virtue and courtly manners, not about conquering the infidel in the name of the Lord. This, in the context of three other poems that treat themes of faith and personal virtue as the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven leads me to the strong conviction that what we have here is a deliberate and conscious subversion of the populist, xenophobic, intolerant and mostly plain silly Romance form to the ends of serious Christian moral instruction, written by a devout believer. Which leads to the question of what lesson we are supposed to learn.
In the introduction, Andrews and Waldron point out that there are three views expressed about Gawain's lie/cheat in the swapping game:
Gawain's own view is that it is a disaster that has ruined his honour forever. Whilst he ruefully complains about how women through history have tempted men to ruin, with examples such as Adam and Eve and Sampson and Delilah (note - Biblical cases) he also says he is going to openly wear the girdle that cost him his honour as an antidote to future pride and a spur to greater humility. He doesn't seem to be seriously saying the moral fault lies with anybody but himself. And it's a major fault.
Bertilak, instigator of this whole series of events, who openly admits that they were deliberately intended as a test of Arthur's court and it's reputation, is more forgiving. He says that Gawain's lie/cheat was trivial in the circumstances and fully repaid by the cut to the neck Gawain received (which it's later hinted leaves a permanent scar). That was punishment enough, given the threat to Gawain's life and his passing of all the more serious tests. Gawain should forget about it - he and Arthur's court are vindicated.
Finally, the knights back home take the view that the whole adventure redounds greatly and solely to the benefit of the reputation of Arthur's court and don't take the girdle incident at all seriously.
Who was right? What did the Pearl Poet think? Tolkien, in the intro to his translation, infers that the point is that courtly manners are entirely secondary to genuine Christian morals and that the fact that Gawain is not seduced by Bertilak's wife is what really counts. This might well be true. The Poet certainly never overtly states an opinion to the contrary. I can't help thinking, though, that the fact that Gawain wears the girdle as a reminder of past failure is actually the key lesson, because it fits so well with what is going on in the other poems. What Gawain learns is greater humility and not to pride himself on his honour but to try to do better in the future. Striving for self-improvement and forgiveness of past failure are major moral tenets of non-fundamentalist interpretations of Jesus' message and that's what happens: Bertilak forgives and Gawain goes forward trying to do better in future.
Overview of the whole book
Wow! I knew this was going to be a challenge but didn't think it could be tougher than Piers Plowman. In fact the only ways in which Piers was harder were in over-all length and the heavy use of Latin that I simply don't know at all. Reading all four poems was a really worth-while exercise not solely because each has its merits but because taking them together informs each one individually. This was especially true of Gawain and I strongly recommend reading it last, rather than skipping the others or reading them after. This also has the incidental benefit of the reader having developed some familiarity with the obscure and difficult dialect and spelling that make Chaucer look like a book for kindergardeners. Pearl is the dullest, though most personal and heart-felt, of all the poems and lacks the story-telling verve and exciting and varied imagery of the others, so maybe don't start there, either. The re-tellings of Bible stories are the highlights of the other two poems and some of the scenes and images in those will stay with me just as long as any of the crazy events in Gawain.
So - hard work but amply repaid and a long standing ambition achieved!
February 19, 2019
‘Pearl’ is incredible.
May 8, 2021
Dissent, indict Him through the years,
HIs steps stirs not one inch astray.
No tittle is gained for all your tears,
though you should grieve and never be gay.
Abate your bluster, be not so fierce,
And seek His grace as soon as you may,
For Prayer has power to bite and pierce
And call compassion into play.
His mercy can wipe your tears away,
Redeem your loss, restore content,
But, grudge, or be glad, agree or gainsay,
All lies with Him to give consent.
I've read all of these over the years except for The Pearl. An amazingly written poem in terms of both language and meter. The subject matter is a bit bland, large parts are quoting and retelling biblical passages. It is what it is, and it doesnt really detract from my enjoyment of the language.
HIs steps stirs not one inch astray.
No tittle is gained for all your tears,
though you should grieve and never be gay.
Abate your bluster, be not so fierce,
And seek His grace as soon as you may,
For Prayer has power to bite and pierce
And call compassion into play.
His mercy can wipe your tears away,
Redeem your loss, restore content,
But, grudge, or be glad, agree or gainsay,
All lies with Him to give consent.
I've read all of these over the years except for The Pearl. An amazingly written poem in terms of both language and meter. The subject matter is a bit bland, large parts are quoting and retelling biblical passages. It is what it is, and it doesnt really detract from my enjoyment of the language.
February 13, 2025
hated every second of it
May 27, 2012
By far the best edition of these poems I've ever come across. Gives the complete Middle English texts of of all four poems with extensive notes, introduction and glossary. Does for the Gawain poet what Frederick Klaeber did for Beowulf.
May 15, 2022
Pearl hits different when you have a daughter
May 28, 2024
Gawain is the highlight. Pearl is religious allegory. Cleaness and Patience are didactic OT stories. (I find the Pearl Poet’s Middle English tougher than Chaucer’s.)
September 18, 2022
This poem goes so hard. I love a memento mori, i love medieval history, and I love the color green, so there's really no surprises that I find this to be such a banger
The literary criticism about the poem is also awesome. I gravitate towards the readings that see it as a comic critique of medieval Christianity, rebuffed by the Pagan roots which had their hold in England only a few centuries prior. The Knights of the Round Table will behead someone on Christmas in the name of God...the Green Knight says no, you will not.
The literary criticism about the poem is also awesome. I gravitate towards the readings that see it as a comic critique of medieval Christianity, rebuffed by the Pagan roots which had their hold in England only a few centuries prior. The Knights of the Round Table will behead someone on Christmas in the name of God...the Green Knight says no, you will not.
December 5, 2025
The use of symbolism gives endless depth to an otherwise shorter story. Like a Pollock in that upon examination of every artistic stroke you see beyond the simple, abstract artifice into a wealth of underlying morals and meaning.
Also makes me appreciate (and understand) the A24 film more.
Also makes me appreciate (and understand) the A24 film more.
May 28, 2022
Middle English poetry is amazing. The double meanings, the careful wording, the alliteration, the careful structure...all beautiful, and the Pearl Poet is a master of his craft. Pearl is a beautiful meditation on death and eternal life, balancing elegy and consolation, Cleanness is an interesting moralization of the Flood, the fall of Sodom, and the fall of Belshazzar, emphasizing spiritual cleanness, in a very medieval Catholic view, Patience is a beautiful retelling of the book of Jonah, and possibly the only poetic retelling of that book in English during the Middle Ages, and then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--a poem worth several long essays of comments. The interlocking structure of the story, the focus on time, the careful use of precise wording in the bargains (mostly acknowledged in this translation--even though there are a few points where Finch can't help reading into the words), and the amazing irony of the moment where Sir Gawain handles the boar's head...they're all masterfully done.
This edition also includes Saint Erkenwald, and there is some doubt whether that poem really belongs to this poet, but it was an interesting read nonetheless. Overall, I found the translation to be good, and the Middle English on the facing page helps maintain the integrity of the poems, since you can read them in Middle English if you wish (though beware the archaic letters!). There is a thorough glossary in the back, which is also helpful for students who have translation exercises on any of these poems. Highly recommend.
This edition also includes Saint Erkenwald, and there is some doubt whether that poem really belongs to this poet, but it was an interesting read nonetheless. Overall, I found the translation to be good, and the Middle English on the facing page helps maintain the integrity of the poems, since you can read them in Middle English if you wish (though beware the archaic letters!). There is a thorough glossary in the back, which is also helpful for students who have translation exercises on any of these poems. Highly recommend.
December 17, 2013
I read the Medieval Romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” translated by Marie Borroff. This poem was a test of chivalry for Sir Gawain. The Green Knight proposes for someone to play his game. The rules were that one person is to try and cut the head off of the Green knight, and if they succeed they get to keep the ax. Although if they fail, in 12 months and a day the Green Knight will be able to cut the head off of his opponent. The game took place and someone lost, but in the end there was no loser.
Sir Gawain is the nephew of King Arthur and is a knight of the round table. Sir Gawain chooses to be an opponent in the Green Knights game, which he lost. Sir Gawain is a knight filled with chivalry throughout this poem, but also was deceitful. In the end, nobody was hurt and lessons were learned.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” took place in the 11th century. The setting took place in Camelot in the beginning. In the end the setting was was at the Green Chapel in North Wales.
The author’s message in this poem is to always do the right thing. Chivalry is the main theme of this Medieval Romance, and in the end Sir Gawain passes the game. Without bravery, honest, valor, and courage, Sir Gawain would have never passed The Green Knights game.
I would recommend this poem to English classes. I didn't really care for this story, but it does show you how chivalry works.
Sir Gawain is the nephew of King Arthur and is a knight of the round table. Sir Gawain chooses to be an opponent in the Green Knights game, which he lost. Sir Gawain is a knight filled with chivalry throughout this poem, but also was deceitful. In the end, nobody was hurt and lessons were learned.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” took place in the 11th century. The setting took place in Camelot in the beginning. In the end the setting was was at the Green Chapel in North Wales.
The author’s message in this poem is to always do the right thing. Chivalry is the main theme of this Medieval Romance, and in the end Sir Gawain passes the game. Without bravery, honest, valor, and courage, Sir Gawain would have never passed The Green Knights game.
I would recommend this poem to English classes. I didn't really care for this story, but it does show you how chivalry works.
May 18, 2017
Those are more of an academic four stars, rather than four stars of enjoyment. I prefer Tolkein's rendering of Gawain and the Green Knight, which strikes me as both more atmospheric and epic while also being more grounded in the language of the original, but I am about the furthest thing from a medieval expert. Take with a grain of salt. Pearl, on the other hand, is a very, very difficult poem, which I found horribly obscure and nearly unreadable in every single iteration I tried. This, however, has a gloss on the other side of Pearl in modern English, which finally helped me to get some sort of grip on it, at least its most basic meanings. Cleanness and Patience frankly look like vacations after the long, long endurance test that is Pearl, and attempting to decipher its many multilayered meanings and non-meanings. This book was extremely useful to me when I was first trying to get some grasp on Middle English.
March 22, 2022
Gardner offers excellent critical essays on the Gawain poet, though, sadly, his chapter on the poet's "vision of reality" is quite short and a bit underdeveloped. His translations of these poems are consistently good. "Pearl" remains, to my mind, one of the most beautiful and brilliant works in all of medieval literature. Gardner's translation helped me to bask in its light anew.
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December 3, 2024even though i have not read this cover to cover i have decided to log this because i have stared at the middle english enough and written enough essays to know it quite well. i shall proceed to log a couple of books that i've read bits of for essays hehe! i want to prove that i am doing work! (not all of them though. i feel disingenuous logging The Faerie Queene having read perhaps 10% of the text)
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June 12, 2025As is a lush collection of middle-English and deeply religious poems, I found an equal amount of aesthetic appreciation of nature and the natural mystery of the world;— Pearl proves there may not be a finer poem of the middle period, certainly one to be read by kindle-lit fireside with the puffing of a stout calabash—The Green Knight makes a decorous, yearly read for Christmastime.
May 22, 2021
Great story, characters, and themes -- Gawain Poet delivers!
July 16, 2022
I just read the poem Patience. This book was lent to me by one of my customers. He said the poem. Changed his life after some medical struggles.
October 12, 2022
Honestly, not a horrible story just could’ve and should’ve been said in like one paragraph.
October 5, 2024
wait... this was SO fun!
December 3, 2024
goodreads did not want me to log this (it kept freezing) which was probably a sign that i shouldn't because let's be honest i never read any of them the whole way through and i have no idea what cleanness is even about. but i have spent enough time scanning and writing about this book this term to accept it as having been read. it was okay, i like the plots of gawain and pearl and the introduction/notes/translations in this edition were incredibly useful.
July 18, 2022
I loved so much that I am translating it to Portuguese as a very good exercise in alliteration.
April 2, 2025
imagine giving sir gawain fewer than 5 stars
January 31, 2025
soo lovely
March 24, 2019
[rating = B]
This is for "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" only. I really thought this was engaging and interesting. It also questions Knightly conduct and the idea of the cyclical nature of Glory, or ignoring failure. Although the Middle English is not as hard as some other texts, it is still useful to have a translation nearby.
This is for "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" only. I really thought this was engaging and interesting. It also questions Knightly conduct and the idea of the cyclical nature of Glory, or ignoring failure. Although the Middle English is not as hard as some other texts, it is still useful to have a translation nearby.
July 29, 2016
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is a story that mainly focused on Gawain’s chivalry being tested in many ways by the Green Knight. Everything began when a knight wearing nothing but green showed up to King Arthur’s home in Camelot. The knight asked Arthur to participate in his beheading game. To everyone’s surprise, Sir Gawain, another Knight of the Round Table, suggested that he play in his King’s place. Gawain is told that he can have one swing at the Green Knight’s head, but if the knight survived, Gawain had to let him have a swing himself. Sir Gawain beheaded the Green Knight immediately, but the knight picked up his head and rode off on his horse. Because of this, Gawain had to seek out the Green Knight a year and a day later to hold up his end of the deal. On his journey to find the Green Knight, Gawain’s chivalry was tested a few more times.
In this story, Sir Gawain was the main character. Also, the Green Knight played a major role. Unlike anybody else in the story, the Green Knight had supernatural powers. Apart from surviving his beheading, the Green Knight shape shifted.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” took place during the 11th century. The first part of the beheading game took place at King Arthur’s home in Camelot. When Gawain went looking for the Green Knight, he wandered through the woods of North Wales until he stumbled upon a random castle. While at the castle, Sir Gawain learned the whereabouts of the Green Chapel. The end of this story takes place at the Green Chapel.
There were a couple of prevalent themes in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. I concluded that honor was the most important theme. By seeking out the Green Knight to finish the beheading game, Gawain honored the Green Knight’s terms. I also thought loyalty was a significant theme. By offering to play in his King’s place, Gawain showed loyalty.
I enjoyed reading “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. Basically, the moral of the story was to always do the right thing. Because a lot could be taken from this story, I would recommend it to anyone above at or above a high school reading level.
In this story, Sir Gawain was the main character. Also, the Green Knight played a major role. Unlike anybody else in the story, the Green Knight had supernatural powers. Apart from surviving his beheading, the Green Knight shape shifted.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” took place during the 11th century. The first part of the beheading game took place at King Arthur’s home in Camelot. When Gawain went looking for the Green Knight, he wandered through the woods of North Wales until he stumbled upon a random castle. While at the castle, Sir Gawain learned the whereabouts of the Green Chapel. The end of this story takes place at the Green Chapel.
There were a couple of prevalent themes in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. I concluded that honor was the most important theme. By seeking out the Green Knight to finish the beheading game, Gawain honored the Green Knight’s terms. I also thought loyalty was a significant theme. By offering to play in his King’s place, Gawain showed loyalty.
I enjoyed reading “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. Basically, the moral of the story was to always do the right thing. Because a lot could be taken from this story, I would recommend it to anyone above at or above a high school reading level.
January 10, 2014
“Sir Gawain” is a narrative poem that tells us a story about chivalry. Sir Gawain is the knight who is tested. On New Year’s Eve a Green Knight comes to Camelot looking to play a game. He asked who the leader of the castle was, because he figured he would be the one to play the game. King Arthur tells the Green Knight he is the leader and the Green Knight tells the King all the rules of the game. The Knights at the Roundtable know they should not let their King play the game so Sir Gawain is the brave one who steps up to play the game. Sir Gawain gets his one chance to chop the Green Knight’s head off and he fails, so he has to wait a year and one day to think about what is going to happen to him. Then he ventures off to the Green Knight’s castle to receive what is going to happen to him.
Sir Gawain is one of the most important characters in the story because if it weren't for him, Camelot would have been without a King. The Green Knight is another main character because if he was not there the story would not have been written. There are a few other minor characters such as King Arthur, Green Knight’s wife, and the Knight’s of the Roundtable.
The story is taken place in Camelot and also North Wales at the Green Knight’s castle. It is written in medieval times. You can tell because there are knights, castles, and the chivalrous acts are different than what we would consider today.
The main theme in this story is chivalry. The Knight’s of the Roundtable are all tested but only one of them steps up and is courageous enough to play the game and that is Sir Gawain.
I think this book was very interesting. It always kept me thinking what was going to happen next, and had these little hints that if you picked them up you could kind of tell what would happen next. I would recommend this book to high school students.
Sir Gawain is one of the most important characters in the story because if it weren't for him, Camelot would have been without a King. The Green Knight is another main character because if he was not there the story would not have been written. There are a few other minor characters such as King Arthur, Green Knight’s wife, and the Knight’s of the Roundtable.
The story is taken place in Camelot and also North Wales at the Green Knight’s castle. It is written in medieval times. You can tell because there are knights, castles, and the chivalrous acts are different than what we would consider today.
The main theme in this story is chivalry. The Knight’s of the Roundtable are all tested but only one of them steps up and is courageous enough to play the game and that is Sir Gawain.
I think this book was very interesting. It always kept me thinking what was going to happen next, and had these little hints that if you picked them up you could kind of tell what would happen next. I would recommend this book to high school students.
April 2, 2013
I just finished reading this book for my humanities class as part of our Poet unit, and I found it to be difficult to get into at first, although the last two Fitts really made up for it. After finishing the story, I realized that the story isn't simply for entertainment value, but rather as a means of realizing how Sir Gawain was determined to prove himself and thus become less "green". Unlike the other knights, Gawain feels that he needs to prove himself worthy of being a knight, especially since he is one of the younger knights and hasn't completed any adventures yet. I appreciated the fantasy aspect of the story, and the hidden meanings incorporated in it and the way the story progressed was very interesting to me.
April 17, 2016
there is no time more beautifully, ominously dark than the week between christmas day and the coming of the new year; we eat and drink and make merry, with our windows tightly shut and our doors firmly barred against the wild winter but it's impossible not to feel the chill of the year breathing its last. it's this eerie sense of dread that i love about sir gawain and the green knight, the way the boundaries between the court and the wild, nature and the supernatural, reality and fantasy, history and myth are made thin, the familiar made unfamiliar, and all the while the beating heart of the poem is carrying us frantically closer to the moment of gawain's execution, and his blood against the snow.
March 24, 2016
A very interesting, if slightly exhausting, read -- the parallel-text format kept tempting me over to the left-hand pages where I got dose after dose of the impenetrable original text of the mystery poet's works. I have to say that even with my limited knowledge of Middle English, some of the translations seemed very free indeed and I wonder how much of the meaning was lost or altered. Nevertheless this is an intriguing look into a deeply religious medieval mind -- and I do mean medieval, because the text content seemed so many decades older than anything I would have expected out of a poet writing in Middle English. I really wonder if these works were handed down from someone much earlier and if that accounts for the puzzling dialect...
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