Sir Gawain and the Green Knight :: Fourteenth Century English Literature Essays

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem written in the fourteenth century by an anonymous author. It describes the adventures of Sir Gawain, during which his morality is put to the test. The story develops around the Christmas game with the Green Knight. In this game the challenger, the Green Knight, proposes to exchange blows with an axe within a one-year interval. At the time Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written, Sir Gawain was considered to be the most noble and admirable of the knights of the Round Table. His actions, therefore, in this poem, testify to the reader that his knightly honor is unblemished, despite the moral tests he is put through in the story. The main idea behind the poem is to show that the perfect Christian knight, is not just the strongest and bravest warrior, but also the most moral and honorable person. Therefore, Sir Gawain is tested in order for us to see if he is a perfect knight. GRAPH The second part of the poem (stanzas 1 through 3) presents us with a change in the poem's tone, as compared with the previous festival atmosphere of the castle. We are given a detailed description of passing time. The change in weather and all the surroundings seems to be governed by fate, but as the poet notices the "First things and final conform but seldom" (Norton, 212). The vivid description of passing clouds, "fostering showers"(212) and singing birds signifies the beginning of summer-time, which changes with the portrayal of harvest season, the ripening of the fruits and the turning of green grass into gray (Norton, 213), marked by arrival of the autumn. We see how the eternal cycle of seasons is once again approaching its end. The cold winter is very close now, and that also means that so is Sir Gawain's journey to find Green Knight and complete the Christmas game: "And so the year moves on in yesterday's many, And winter once more, by the world's law draws nigh." (Nor ton 213, lines 529-530)