Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English late 14th-century chivalric romance in alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest that tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.
The story describes how Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any man to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him, after which the Green Knight stands, picks up his head, and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle at which he is a guest. The poem survives in one manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x., which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. All four are written in a North / West Midlands dialect of Middle English, and are thought to be by the same author, dubbed the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet".
Synopsis
In Camelot on New Year's eve, King Arthur's court is exchanging gifts and waiting for the feasting to start,Lars Kjaer, The Medieval Gift and the Classical Tradition: Ideas and Performance of Generosity in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2019), p. 177. when the king asks to see or hear of an exciting adventure. A gigantic figure, entirely green in appearance and riding a green horse, rides unexpectedly into the hall. He wears no armour but bears an axe in one hand and a holly bough in the other. Refusing to fight anyone there on the grounds that they are all too weak, he insists he has come for a friendly Christmas game: someone is to strike him once with his axe, on the condition that the Green Knight may return the blow in a year and a day. The axe will belong to whoever accepts this deal. King Arthur is prepared to accept the challenge when it appears no other knight will dare, but Sir Gawain, youngest of Arthur's knights and his nephew, asks for the honour instead. The giant bends and bares his neck before him and Gawain neatly beheads him in one stroke. However, the Green Knight neither falls nor falters, but instead reaches out, picks up his severed head, and mounts his horse. The Green Knight shows his bleeding head to Queen Guinevere, and reminds Gawain that the two must meet again at the Green Chapel in a year and a day, before the knight rides away. Gawain and Arthur admire the axe, hang it up as a trophy, and encourage Guinevere to treat the whole matter lightly.
As the date approaches, Sir Gawain leaves to find the Green Chapel and keep his part of the bargain. Many adventures and battles are alluded to but not described, until Gawain comes across a splendid castle, where he meets the lord of the castle and his beautiful wife, who are pleased to have such a renowned guest. Also present is an old and ugly lady, unnamed but treated with great honour by all. Gawain tells them of his New Year's appointment at the Green Chapel, and that he has only a few days remaining. The lord laughs, explaining that there is a path that will take him to the chapel less than two miles away, and proposes that Gawain rest at the castle until then. Relieved and grateful, Gawain agrees.
The lord proposes a bargain to Gawain: he goes hunting every day, and he will give Gawain whatever he catches, on the condition that Gawain give him whatever he may gain during the day; Gawain accepts. After he leaves, his wife visits Gawain's bedroom and behaves seductively, but despite her best efforts, he allows her nothing but a single kiss. When the lord returns and gives Gawain the deer he has killed, Gawain gives a kiss to him without divulging its source. The next day the lady returns to Gawain, who again courteously foils her advances, and later that day there is a similar exchange of a hunted boar for two kisses. She comes once more on the third morning, but once her advances are denied, she offers Gawain a gold ring as a keepsake. He gently but steadfastly refuses, but she pleads that he at least take her sash, a girdle of green and gold silk. The sash, the lady assures him, is charmed, and will keep him from all physical harm. Tempted, as he may otherwise die the next day, Gawain accepts it, and they exchange three kisses. The lady has Gawain swear that he will keep the gift secret from her husband. That evening, the lord returns with a fox, which he exchanges with Gawain for the three kisses; Gawain does not mention the sash.
The next day, Gawain binds the sash around his waist. Outside the Green Chapel—only an earthen mound containing a cavern—he finds the Green Knight sharpening an axe. As promised, Gawain bends his bared neck to receive his blow. At the first swing, Gawain flinches slightly and the Green Knight belittles him for it. Ashamed of himself, Gawain does not flinch with the second swing, but again, the Green Knight withholds the full force of his blow. The knight explains he was testing Gawain's nerve. Angrily, Gawain tells him to deliver his blow, and so the knight does, causing only a slight wound on Gawain's neck, and ending the game. Gawain seizes his sword, helmet, and shield, but the Green Knight, laughing, reveals himself to be none other than the lord of the castle, Bertilak de Hautdesert, transformed by magic. He explains that the entire adventure was a trick of the unnamed "elderly lady" Gawain saw at the castle, who is the sorceress Morgan le Fay, Arthur's stepsister, who intended to test Arthur's knights and frighten Guinevere to death. The nick Gawain suffered at the third stroke was because of his attempt to conceal the gift of the sash. Gawain is ashamed to have behaved deceitfully, but the Green Knight laughs and pronounces him the most blameless knight in all the land. The two part on cordial terms. Gawain returns to Camelot wearing the sash as a token of his failure to keep his promise. The Knights of the Round Table absolve him of the blame and decide that henceforth each will wear a green sash in recognition of Gawain's adventure and as a reminder to be honest.
"Gawain Poet"
Though the real name of the "Gawain Poet" (or poets) is unknown, some inferences about them can be drawn from an informed reading of their works. The manuscript of Gawain is known in academic circles as Cotton Nero A.x., following a naming system used by one of its owners, the 16th-century Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, a collector of medieval English texts. Before the Gawain manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile in Yorkshire. Little is known about its previous ownership, and until 1824, when the manuscript was introduced to the academic community in a second edition of Thomas Warton's History, edited by Richard Price, it was almost entirely unknown. Even then, the Gawain poem was not published in its entirety until 1839, which is when it was given its present title. Now held in the British Library, it has been dated to the late 14th century, meaning the poet was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, though it is unlikely that they ever met, and the Gawain poet's English is considerably different from Chaucer's. The three other works found in the same manuscript as Gawain (commonly known as Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness or Purity) are often considered to be written by the same author. However, the manuscript containing these poems was transcribed by a copyist and not by the original poet. Although nothing explicitly suggests that all four poems are by the same poet, comparative analysis of dialect, verse form, and diction have pointed towards single authorship.
What is known today about the poet is general. J. R. R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, after reviewing the text's allusions, style, and themes, concluded in 1925:
The most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire. He is known to have lived in the dialect region of the Gawain Poet and is thought to have written the poem St. Erkenwald, which some scholars argue bears stylistic similarities to Gawain. St. Erkenwald, however, has been dated by some scholars to a time outside the Gawain Poet's era. Thus, ascribing authorship to John Massey is still controversial, and most critics consider the Gawain Poet an unknown.
Verse form The 2,530 lines and 101 stanzas that make up Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are written in what linguists call the "Alliterative Revival" style of alliterative verse typical of the 14th century. Instead of focusing on a metrical syllabic count and rhyme, the alliterative form of this period usually relied on the agreement of a pair of stressed syllables at the beginning of the line and another pair at the end. Each line always includes a pause, called a caesura, at some point after the first two stresses, dividing it into two half-lines. Although he follows the form of his day, the Gawain Poet was freer with convention than his or her predecessors. The poet broke the alliterative lines into variable-length groups and ended these nominal stanzas with a rhyming section of five lines known as the bob and wheel, in which the "bob" is a very short line, sometimes of only two syllables, followed by the "wheel," longer lines with internal rhyme.
+ lines 146–150 Original Text Translation ::(bob)
(wheel) ::(bob) full clean. (wheel) Great wonder of the knight Folk had in hall, I ween, Full fierce he was to sight, And over all bright green.
Similar stories
The earliest known story to feature a beheading game is the 8th-century Middle Irish tale Bricriu's Feast. This story parallels Gawain in that, like the Green Knight, Cú Chulainn's antagonist feints three blows with the axe before letting his target depart without injury. A beheading exchange also appears in the late 12th-century Life of Caradoc, a Middle French narrative embedded in the anonymous First Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail. A notable difference in this story is that Caradoc's challenger is his father in disguise, come to test his honour. Lancelot is given a beheading challenge in the early 13th-century Perlesvaus, in which a knight begs him to chop off his head or else put his own in jeopardy. Lancelot reluctantly cuts it off, agreeing to come to the same place in a year to put his head in the same danger. When Lancelot arrives, the people of the town celebrate and announce that they have finally found a true knight, because many others had failed this test of chivalry.
The stories The Girl with the Mule (alternately titled The Mule Without a Bridle) and feature Gawain in beheading game situations. In Hunbaut, Gawain cuts off a man's head and, before he can replace it, removes the magic cloak keeping the man alive, thus killing him. Several stories tell of knights who struggle to stave off the advances of women sent by their lords as a test; these stories include Yder, the Lancelot-Grail, Hunbaut, and The Knight with the Sword. The last two involve Gawain specifically. Usually, the temptress is the daughter or wife of a lord to whom the knight owes respect, and the knight is tested to see whether or not he will remain chaste in trying circumstances.