welcome to lecture 8
for English 250 this is on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
I've entitled this context beginnings. it's hard to date exactly
the time of writing of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
your text will tell you somewhere around 1360
I think that's probably a fairly good date, it is part of a tradition
something called the alliterative revival
the alliterative revival,
old English literature was written
in half lines so that the controlling
consonant sound across the entire line of poetry will be the same
so if say for example a G that shows up in one word
the poet will try to use words that have G's throughout or
R's or S's or T's, something like that. That tradition
in writing it fell out of favor in certain parts of England
but in the part of England the southwest part of England
where Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written
it continued so we call that and poems
of its type using this particular verse form, works of the
alliterative revival. We haven't talked much about
manuscripts, Beowulf exists in a single manuscript for us today
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight exists in a single manuscript
along with several other poems and the other poems
that are included in the main script probably tell something about
the reception of the poem, perhaps the writer of the poem
and how we might interpret it.
The first poem that I have listed here for you is a poem entitled Pearl.
Pearl is a poem up religious consolation in the Christian tradition
the speaker in the poem has a
young daughter whose name is Pearl who has died and he's coming to terms with
that death, that loss which you can understand
he sees her on the other side she reminds him
of important bits of scripture that interestingly enough often wind up as
part of
funeral services today as a kind of consolation
at the end of the poem he is convinced that she is
okay where she is, it's a poem of Christian consolation
or the death of an infant. Infant mortality was very high in the middle ages
Patience is a retelling of
the Jonah story from the work of and Jonah in the Hebrew Bible
or Old Testament. A very interesting and
colorful retelling the story fairly close to a biblical paraphrase there are a
couple unusual things
the writer's obviously interested in Noah's
no I'm sorry Johna's journey to
Nineveh, and there's a great deal of attention to
boat rigging's and that sort of thing they tell us that our poet was interested in
sailing and navigation. Purity
is a collection of biblical exampla particularly from the book of Daniel
The Feast of Belshazzar dealing with temple
ornaments and ritual practices
the notion that purity was something
which in order to be acceptable there was both an external and an internal
quality
associated with it. So what you hear with those three is
this is a poem a manuscript
with religious poems which leads us to an interesting question
how on earth is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the midst of these?
Because Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is
a romance. Romance
is not about love it is about the concept of adventure
keep that in mind, it's not about love
it's about adventure, it's the world nights
it's the world of ladies its the world court splendor
it's the world of quests and of course the quests are asscoiated with that adventure
in this segment of our course we will look at Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
and we will also look at the Wife of Bath's tale both
of which are medieval romances
the tradition of course is French in origin
this particular romance puts a particular
virtue on trial
I want to look at that for a minute I've given you a definition
you want to remember this one "courtesy"
courtesy we think today about courtesy as essentially
holding the door for someone else, saying excuse me I didn't mean to
cut in front of you in line, that sort of thing for the Middle Ages courtesy
particularly among the knightly classes
meant something like this " it's a traditional speech in action
in which the person resigns his or her will
over to another person" think about that
so I will do something because you want me to do it
I might not want to do it myself but out a deferrance to you
I will do it now if you're thinking in terms of ethical
considerations you realize very quickly
that that can get us into a bit of hot water really fast
we're going to watch Sir Gawain in, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
tread lightly among
his various levels of being courteous to
the knight of the castle and the knight's wife.
and we will look at that in some detail
I want to think about Arthur's Court first of all
at the opening of the poem and this begins in your text on page 186
the poem is divided into something called fits
section 1 section 2 section 3 section 4
is certainly the way to think about that. Were at the Christmas season
so there's been feasting going on and by the way the feasting has been going
on for 15 days, a fortnight
is 2 weeks and one day would be 15 days.
so these people really do know how to live it up
the twelve days of Christmas got extended as it were
everybody it Arthur's Court
is spoken of in superlatives, there are
are the most chivalrous knights
the most wonderful ladies in the world this is indeed the world of splendor
but there something very unusual about this
we might expect Arthur
to be this sort of giant of a figure
but indeed in the poem he is represented in some ways being
rather boyish
are and in fact when our
green knight arrives he is going to insult
those sitting in the court and essentially say that they're just a
bunch of boys
one thing to remember about this initial feast that we have in this is on page 188
we will look in class at some very detailed descriptions in this poem, this
poem
is very rich in detail and
an introductory lecture simply can't cover the entire range of possibilities, but
more less to set out a way that you can think about it.
Notice the seating description
beginning on page 188 and this begins at
line 109 "Good sir Gawain is seated by
Guinevere and at Arthur's other side
sits Agravain a la dure main on the other side sits, both the king’s sister-sons and full sure knights;
Bishop Baldwin above, he begins the table, and Ywain, Urien’s son, ate alongside him.
notice everybody has a certain spot
and you've got to notice in this one Bishop Baldwin
has the most important seat so our representative of the church
at the feast has the most important seat, even more than that of Arthur
by the way Arthur has not taken his seat yet because he is waiting
to hear an adventure little does he know that he's going to see one
what do you make in this green knight?
green his horse is green,
and of course there's this gold embroidered thread
that runs around the garments that he wears
he laughs a lot, in fact laughter is very important in the poem.
Laughter is an interesting emotion once you began to think about it
but let's think about this green knight
what would green represent? all colors have traditional associations with them
green for a medieval world
we are of course in the middle of winter so green showing up at that particular point
indicates the possibility of
maybe an early spring or the renewal of life
in fact in in the Eastern Church
the celebration of what is traditionally called old Christmas
maybe as late as January the 7th with the idea that
if you look under logs you already see life
bursting forth from the ground, so those notions
even during the holiday season of the renewal of nature,
so in some ways he's associated with renewal of
nature. Green is also associated with another thing however
for the medieval world its also associated with evil and the demonic.
no wonder no one wants to take on
his challenge but there's also another important association with the color
green
that is the concept of contemplation reading a lot of the
medieval mystical texts or text that
tell you how you can become a mystic
Walter Hilton's scale of perfection, other works
the victirnes. you find that green is associated with contemplation
the notion that in contemplating the very color itself
you were able to think about even the very depths of your own soul
and your own situation that's going to become very important
for Sir Gawain in the last part of our poem
no one wants to take the challenge, the challenge
come forward chop off my head and a year hence
you come to my place and
I'll chop off your head, well that doesn't quite sound like a game
it sounds like indeed once it happens it's over
well indeed he continues to taunt
around line 280 was that reference that I meant with regard to
he is insulting the manhood of those at Arthur's Court
something is unusual here though Gawain steps forward
amidst all the laughter that would that would have grieved for Arthur himself.
he says that he is the weakest and feeblest of the Warriors at line 354
and then you're asking yourself is this simply
a humility toe post a kind of thing
or you may have friends who say you know I'm not very good at playing the guitar
you hand them your guitar and you know you get a world-class performance
it could be that kind of humility to oppose, whatever it is
Gawain is going to become the representative of Arthur's Court
will he stand the challenge? can he stand the challenge?
and how will he stand challenge?
sure enough he chops off the Knights head
but there's an interesting detail that the poem notes
that the knight picks up the head and turns the head
so that will be facing Guinevere
mmm keep that in mind and of course he reminds
Gawain that he is to meet him on
New Years Day a year hence
part 2 of the poem Arthur is wondering what's going on here
but he doesn't say anything, line 467
he doesn't say anything.
in fit 2 the year passes very quickly and
Gawain is leaving on a religious holiday
November the 1st typically refers to as All Saints Day
for the beginning of his activity he travels around through the area of Wales
Christmas Eve comes and being a good
medieval Christian he knows that he needs
to receive the Eucharist
the mass for Christmas
and he prays that he will find a
castle that will provide him with a place to stay
and he's going to stay here for several days, something is going to happen
a series is going to fall in place whereby
he is going to
accecpt a challenge from the knight
of the castle, that they will exchange winnings
whenever the knight wins in his quests
he will exchange with Gawain in the evening and Gawain will exchange
whatever he wins at the castle
doesn't seem like it would be very much in exchange does it?
stay tuned we will find out.