EN 205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Platonic Love, Courtly Love
2 Sep 2016
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August 31st: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (part 1 & 2)
•Written between 1375 and 1400
•Survives in only one manuscript
•Includes three religious poems: Pearl, Patience, and Purity
•Written in a Middle English dialect from the northwest midlands
•Uses alliteration
•The line is not built on a fixed pattern of alliterations or stressed syllables
•Each stanza ends with five short lines rhyming a b a b a
•Called the wheel and bob
•More than 625 years of linguistic changed between Beowulf and Sir Gawain
•Influenced by French
•Old English + Old French = Middle English (with varied dialects)
•Language sounds more unfamiliar than it looks
•Plot Overview
•Integration: Knights and Ladies at Christmas in King Arthur’s Court
•Cause of Disintegration: Green Knight comes and issues a strange challenge, which Gawain accepts
•Period of Disintegration: Gawain must wander on his quest for the Green Knight
•False Integration: Gawain is welcomed into Host’s castle, plays another game
•Setting (lines 37-49)
•Christmastime at King Arthur’s court
•Filled with Knights and Ladies, King Arthur
•King Arthur (lines 85-99)
•Immature, almost childish
•Young king
•Wanted action and excitement
•The Green Knight (lines 140-150, 165-167)
•Very large, splendidly dressed
•Completely green in color; even his horse was green
•Everyone was amazed to see him
•Carried a large ax and a sprig of holly
•Mystical, supernatural being
•The Green Man: an old Celtic symbol connected to nature
•Asked to see the King, disrespectful and impolite
•The Green Knight’s Challenge (lines 270-300)
•Challenges a knight to hit him once (without restraint) and then in a year he will do the same to that
knight
•Insults the knights and King by patronizing them
•King Arthur puts forth one of his knights
•This is a challenge to the whole court, to the ideals of the people in the ruling class
•Tests the foundations of chivalry: courage, integrity, courtesy
•Highlights the role of contracts (bonds/agreements) in their society
•Reputation of King Arthur’s court, truth of the chivalric code, Sir Gawain’s identity and palce in
society are all at stake here
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