ENGL 1200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Courtly Love
25 Sep 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Sept 25
The Second Coming
• The god that will come down will have NO mercy
o The Christian God is supposed to be full of mercy
• “slouches” - suggests reluctance, kind of aggressive for a big animal- no one can stop the
movement of this beast slouching towards Bethlehem
• Good poem to look at for word choices and imagery
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - quiz
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight-
• Middle ages
o Enormous significant uncertainty
o Disease ridden
o War
o Physical uncertainty
o Time of certain spiritual and religious beliefs
o Life is wretched
• People sought the morale code, to find order and something beautiful and worth while
• Arthurian Romance
o Features tails of knights, supernatural elements, love
o Courtly love tradition
▪ Women are placed on pedestals and knights look at all of them
▪ Never marry the one that they adore the most
o Chivalric Heroism
▪ Knights on horseback
• Noble
• Honesty
• Selfless
▪ Charming (social graces)
▪ Humility
▪ Loyalty to the king/God/your lady
▪ Purpose
▪ Pride
• She temps sir Gawain to sleep with him
• Poet looks back on history
• Life at Camelot:
o Luminous with joy, no dark feelings
o Not a need for anything
