Before Reading Meet The Gawain Poet

The Gawain Poet’s rich imagination and skill with language have earned him recognition as one of the greatest medieval English poets. Yet his identity remains unknown. Scholars can only speculate on what the background of the Gawain Poet (as he is known) may have been.

Provincial GeniusThe Gawain Poet’s descriptions and language suggest that he wrote the poem during the second half of the 14^th c., which would have made him a contemporary of Chaucer’s. His dialect, however, indicates that, unlike Chaucer, he was not a Londoner but probably lived somewhere in the northwestern part of England.

The only surviving early manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, produced by an anonymous copyist around 1400, also contains three religious poems—Pearl, Purity, and Patience— that are believed to be the work of the Gawain Poet. The manuscript also includes a dozen rough illustrations of the four poems, though it is impossible to verify who created the images for this manuscript. Because Pearl is the most technically brilliant of the four poems, the Gawain Poet is sometimes also called the Pearl Poet.

A Man for All SeasonsThe Gawain Poet’s works reveal that he was widely read in French and Latin and had some knowledge of law and theology. Although he was familiar with many details of medieval aristocratic life, his descriptions and metaphors also show a love of the countryside and rural life.

The Ideal KnightIn the person of Sir Gawain—a nephew of the legendary King Arthur—the Gawain Poet portrays the ideals medieval knights would have striven to meet. Although real knights were far from perfect, legendary knights such as Sir Gawain dutifully obeyed a code of chivalry that represented a combination of Christian and military ideals, including faith, modesty, loyalty, courtesy, bravery, and honor.

While Reading

Literary analysis 1: medieval romance

A medieval romanceis a verse or prose narrative that usually involves adventurous heroes, idealized love, exotic places, and supernatural events. Romances first appeared in France during the 12^th century, and they soon spread to England. Many of the best-known romances celebrate the legendary King Arthur and his knights, who often risk their lives for the love of a noble lady or to uphold the code of behavior known as chivalry. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is considered one of the finest Arthurian romances. As you read, look for these characteristics of romance:

• idealized or larger-than-life characters

• a hero motivated by love, faith, honor, or adventurousness

• exotic settings and supernatural or magical elements

• hidden or mistaken identity

Literary analysis 2: archetype

An archetype is a character type, a setting, an image, or a story pattern that appears in the literature of many cultures. As you read, ask yourself, What features of this poem are archetypes?

Reading skill: make inferences

When you make inferences,you are making logical guesses about a text or character based on your own experience and the evidence or clues you find in the text. Making inferences is sometimes called “reading between the lines” because you come to an understanding of something in a story or poem that the author has not explicitly stated. For example, we can infer from the following lines that Arthur and his knights may be frightened by the Green Knight’s challenge:

If they were like stone before, they were stiller now,

Every last lord in the hall, both the high and the low;

As you read the excerpt from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, pay close attention to the Gawain Poet’s descriptions of thecharacters and settings. Record your inferences about thestory in a chart like the one shown.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1014