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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Appraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Morton W. Bloomfield
Morton W. Bloomfield*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Columbus 10
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Extract

In spite of its language which is admittedly difficult and in spite of certain problems of literary history which beset it, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has never been considered hard to interpret as a work of art. The apparent obviousness of its genre and its combination of apparently straight-forward narrative and notable passages of description do not lead one to suspect that complicated problems of intention or meaning are lurking beneath its vivid and attractive poetry. Piers Plowman, everyone agrees, is a difficult poem and has, at least since the sixteenth century, been recognized as such. Those who are attracted to it are stimulated to probe its significance and to elucidate its mysteries. No such stimulus comes to the much larger group who enjoy and study Sir Gawain, for, although much has been written on it, it has always been con. sidered a relatively uncomplicated, beautifully organized, and masterfully presented obvious poem. Yet the more one studies Sir Gawain and ponders on its charms and organization the more one begins to wonder and speculate. Of course in one sense all literary or artistic masterpieces are miracles and occasion for wonder, but above and beyond the pleasure and surprise which come from great achievement and the feeling of perfection, some works create a peculiar sense of intellectual puzzlement as to the author's intention and tone and even on a more prosaic level as to the tie between a work and its milieu: intellectual, artistic, and social.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 7 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

1 This paper is a longer version of a speech delivered before English Section I at the MLA convention in Chicago, December 1959. I am much indebted to Professors John Conley, A. L. Kellogg, F. L. Utley, and R. M. Estrich for various suggestions and criticism. I also owe a great debt to the members of a seminar in the romance held in the fall of 1959 at Ohio State University: Sarah Appleton, Louis Sheets, and Robert Hall.

2 “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” JEGP, xxxiv (1935), 161.

3 We now possess a useful index of names in the four Cotton Nero poems in C. O. Chapman's An Index of Names in “Pearl,” “Purtiy,”-“Patience,” and “Gawain” (Ithaca, 1951).

4 JEGP, xxxiv, 349.

5 English Studies, xxxii, 70–72.

6 For these two, see Oscar Cargill and Margaret Schlauch in PMLA, XLIII (1928), 105–123.

7 Put forward by C. O. Chapman in PMLA, xlvii (1932), 346–353. Henry Savage in The Gawain-Poet, Studies in his Personality and Background (Chapel Hill, 1956), Appendix K, argues the poet may have had some Chancery experience.

8 See Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. Brian Stone, The Penguin Classics L 92 (London and Baltimore, 1959), pp. 128–129.

9 In MLN, lxvii (1952), 240–242. See also P. A. Becker, “Der grtine Ritter,” Archiv, clix (1931), 275–276, and S. R. T. O. d'Ardenne,“ ‘The Green Count’ and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” RES, N.S., x (1959), 113–126.

10 In Med. AEv, xxii (1953), 18–23.

11 Op. cit., Cf. his “Sir Gawain and the Order of the Garter,” ELB, v (1938), 146–149. Dr. Savage does, however, argue his case circumspectly.

12 See, e.g., PQ, xxviii (1949), 261–273; JEGP, XLIX (1950), 60–66; and MLQ, xii (1951), 387–398.

13 See Oakden, Alliterative Poetry in Middle English, i (Manchester, 1930), pp. 72–87 and p. 257, and Savage, The Gawain-Poet, passim.

14 In his edition “Sire Gawain et le Chevalier Vert,” Poème anglais du XIV siècle, Bibliothèque de philologie germanique ix (Paris, 1946), pp. 46 ff. Cf. the few but suggestive remarks of Gollancz in “Chivalry in Medieval English Poetry,” Chapter vii of Chivalry, A Series of Studies to Illustrate Its Historical Significance and Civilizing Influence, by Members of King's College, London, ed. Edgar Prestage, The History of Civilization, ed. C. K. Ogden (New York, 1928), pp. 175–178.

15 See J. R. Hulbert, “A Hypothesis Concerning the Alliterative Revival,” MP, xxvii (1931), 405–422, and B. Ten Brink, Early English Literature (to Wiclif), trans. H. M. Kennedy, Bonn's Standard Library (London, 1883), pp. 329 ff.

16 On this whole subject, see Raymond Lincoln Kilgour, The Decline of Chivalry as Shown in the French Literature of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1937). This book, of course, concentrates on France. For England, see Gervase Mathew, “Ideals of Knighthood in late-fourteenth-century England,” Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. Hunt, Pantin, and Southern (Oxford, 1948), 354–362 (who uses, inter alia, Sir Gawain for evidence). Cf. also Kurt Lippmann, Das ritterliche Personlichkeitsideal in der mittelenglischen Literatur des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts, Inaugural-Dissertation . . . der Universitât Leipzig (Mee-rane, 1933) and Dietrich Sandberger, Studien iiber das Ritterlum in England vornehmlich wahrend des 14. Jahrhunderts, Historische Studien 310 (Berlin, 1937). Sandberger brings much evidence to show how late chivalry flourished in England. “Im 14. Jahrhundert ist dann England so ‘ritterlich’ wie nur irgendein Land” (p. 241).

17 (Denver, 1951), pp. 62–105. See also Benjamin P. Kurtz, Studies in the Marvellous, Univ. of Calif. Pubs. (London & Berkeley, 1910), especially Chapter i.

18 See, however, Derek A. Pearsall's interesting “Rhetorical ‘Descriptio’ in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” MLR, L (1955), 129–134, which has some very good things to say about the Gawain poet's use of rhetorical devices in descriptions which have long been praised for their naturalism. On this last point, see G. Plessow in Gotische Tektonik . . . (Munich, 1931), pp. 144 ff.

19 In Scrutiny, xvi (1949), 274–300 (reprinted with some minor changes in Medieval English Poetry, The Non-Chaucerian Tradition, London, 1957, pp. 215–251).

20 YWES, xxvii (1947), p. 90.

21 The Legend of Sir Gawain, Studies upon its Original Scope and Significance, Grimm Library 7 (London, 1897). Gaston Paris also recognized a mythic quality in Gawain. For a literary history of Sir Gawain in the Middle Ages and later, see B. J. Whiting, “Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy and His Appearance in Chaucer's Squire's Tale,” Mediaeval Studies, ix (1947), 189–234.

22 TheMedieval Stage (Oxford), 1, 185–186. It may be noted that there is a slight confusion in myth and source study as to whether the dying-rising god is Bercilak or Gawain. Perhaps they should be considered doublets.

23 “The European Sky God VI, The Celts (contin.),” Folklore, xvii (1906), 308–348; 427–453, esp. pp. 338 ff.

24 Miscellany Presented to Kuno Meyer (Halle, 1912), pp. 18–33.

25 A Study of Gawain and the Green Knight, Cambridge. Kittredge believed that the two themes were united for the first time by the unknown French romancer who wrote the lost source of the poem, but as Buchanan (see note 29 below) and perhaps Hulbert (see next note) have urged, there is evidence even in the Irish material that the two themes were at least related.

26 In MP, xiii (1915-16), 433–462; 689–730.

27 Die Sage von Gawain una dem griinen Ritter, Schriften des Albertus-Universitât … 17 (Kônigsberg & Berlin).

28 See Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York, 1927), pp. 39–123; PMLA, XLIII (1928), 384–396 (a theory somewhat modified later); PMLA, XLVIII (1933), 1000–1035; JEGP, XLII (1943), 149–184 (revised as “Welsh Elements in Gawain and the Green Knight,” Wales and the Arthurian Legend, Cardiff, 1956, pp. 77–90); Speculum, xx (1945), 183–203; and Arthurian Tradition & Chrétien de Troyes (New York, 1949), pp. 41 ff.; 146 ff., 278 ff. et passim.

29 Following Loomis' method, the contributions of Miss Buchanan in PMLA, xlvii (1932), 315–338, and Roland Smith in JEGP, XLV (1946), 1–25, should be noted. Smith shows some important parallels to the poem in the Finn cycle. Before his article, only the Ulster cycle had been used in source work on the poem. An important recent discussion of the sources of the poem may be found in Albert B. Friedman, “Morgan le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Speculum, xxxv (1960), 260–274, Friedman makes some very telling points against the theories of both Buchanan and Loomis.

30 Nitze in MP, xxxra (1935-36), 351–366; Krappe in Speculum, xni (1938), 206–215; Coomaraswamy in Speculum, xrx (1944), 104–125; Zimmer in The King and The Corpse, ed., J. Campbell, Bollingen Series xi (New York, 1943), pp. 67–95; and Speirs in Scrutiny, xvi (1949), 274–300, and some further material in subsequent issues.

31 “Myth and Mediaeval Literature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Mediaeval Studies, xviii (1956), 158–172.

32 Mrs. Laura Hibbard Loomis in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Chapter xxxix of Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, A Collective History, ed. R. S. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), p. 535, suggests that Bercilak's wife is a double of Morgan as an analogue in the Vulgate Lancelot seems to show.

33 See M. J. C. Hodgart, “In the Shade of the Golden Bough,” Twentieth Century, CLVII (1955), 111–119, esp. pp. 116–117. Hans Schnyder in “Aspects of Kingship in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” English Studies, XL (1959), 289–294, considers the romance to be, at least in part, a rebuke of Arthur as a bad king.

34 Cf. “… all this art [of the Gawain-poet] is in the service of moral ideas.” B. Ten Brink, Early English Literature (to Wiclif), (London, 1883), p. 347.

35 Else von Schaubert, “Der englische Ursprung von Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyjt,” ES, Lvn (1923), 330–446, is the foremost exponent of the latter in her attempts to posit an English rather than a French lost original for the poem. It may be of some interest here to point out that the temptation of a good man by a woman would probably suggest to medieval man, certainly before some of the tales in the Golden Legend, the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, a connection not hitherto made as far as I'm aware. On this Biblical story and legend in the Middle Ages, see F. E. Faverty, “The Story of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife in Mediaeval Literature,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, xiii (1931), 81–127.

36 In Anglia, LXXVI (1958), 254–265. I am not convinced that Ackerman has completely proved his case. The five wits are associated with sin, true; but they are also associated with the origin of all knowledge good or bad. A very recent discussion of the penance theme in the later part of the poem may be found in John Burrow, “The Two Confession Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” MP, LVII (1959-60), 73–79.

37 Heiko A. Oberman and James A. Weisheipl. “The Sermo epinicius ascribed to Thomas Bradwardine (1346),” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire au moyen âge, xxv (1958), 295–329. The passage referred to occurs on pp. 323–329.

38 George L. Engelhardt's “The Predicament of Gawain,” MLQ, xvi (1955), 218–225, also makes an important point about the religious element in the poem. It emphasizes the weakness of Gawain and his moral predicament, the significance of which is revealed only because of Gawain's apparent integrity. His strength is his weakness. “Actually it [Sir Gawain] is a humane and sympathetic presentation designed to reveal how human and imperfect is even a supposedly perfect knight such as the pentagonal Gawain” (pp. 224–225, note).

39 Middle English Literature, A Critical Study of the Romances, the Religious Lyrics, Piers Plowman (London, 1951), pp. 73–76. The quotation above is from p. 76. Professor Baugh makes the same point: “Though it [GGK] exemplifies the knightly virtues of courage and truth, it is in no sense a story told to enforce a moral.” A Literary History of England (New York, 1948), p. 236. On the Gowain-poet's descriptive and visual powers, see the recent article by Alain Renoir, “Descriptive Techniques in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Orbis litterarum, xiii (1958), 126–132.

40 See Elizabeth M. Wright, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” JEGP, xxxiv (1935), 157–158 and G. H. Gerould in “The Gawain Poet and Dante: A Conjecture,” PMLA, Li (1936), 31. Mrs. Wright in the above article (pp. 158–161) also suggests that in the beheading theme we have a description of a feast-day dramatic entertainment. She stresses the dramatic and theatrical elements in the two meetings between Gawain and the Green Knight. Eagen, in “The Import of Color Symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,' St. Louis Univ. Studies, Series A, Humanities i, 2 (1949), 11–86, sees the romance, at least on one level, as a satire against the average contemporary romance with its glorification of adultery and a decadent chivalry. ”The Gawain-poet wished to write a genuinely Christian poem to glorify true Christian chivalry in which the virtue of chastity held the foremost place“ (p. 62). One gets the impression that Father Eagan falls back on satire to extricate him from the difficulties that this highly Christian interpretation of the romance gets him into.

41 Berry, “The Sublime Ballet: An Essay on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Wind and Rain (Winter 1949–50) 165–174, (which I have not been able to consult), and “Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight,” in The Age of Chaucer, A Guide to English Literature I, ed. Boris Ford, Pelican Books A290 (London, 1954), pp. 148–158 and Goldhurst, “The Green and the Gold: The Major Theme of Gawain and the Green Knight,” CE, xx (1958-59), 61–65.

42 Note that the problem of who subdues whom in the encounter between Gawain and Bercilak is not easily answered. Berry argues that Gawain comes to terms with Bercilak.

43 “The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” PMLA, Lxxn (1957), 574–586.

44 Essays on Middle English Literature, ed. P. Kean (Oxford, 1955), pp. 68 fi.

45 “Madden's Divisions of Sir Gawain and the ‘Large Initial Capitals’ of Cotton Nero A.x,” Speculum, xxi (1946), 67–71. I am indebted in the details of my interpretation here to the investigations of Miss Sarah Appleton.

46 I cannot accept the suggestion of Gollancz and Day in their EETS edition of the poem (London, 1940) that “be tulk” who was tried (or distinguished) for his treachery was Antenor who would hardly be called “the trewest on erthe.” The introduction to this edition by Miss Day contains an excellent summary of the problem of Sir Gawain's sources.

47 Bercilak may have some features of the “wild huntsman;” see R. S. Loomis in JEGP, xm (1943), 170–181, where similarities of GGK to the Welsh mabinogi of Pwyll are pointed to.

48 See Everett, op. cit., pp. 78–79 et passim. The alternation throughout the poem of inside and outside is a most significant feature and helps to create the sense of solidity I find in the poem. I am indebted to Mr. Robert Hall for an awareness of this feature of organization. Mrs. Loomis suggests somewhat this point in op. cit., p. 539. The romance is at its densest during the temptation scenes, when action goes on in the castle and out of it, in Gawain's bedroom and elsewhere, and within Gawain's soul and without, all at the same time.

49 Maynard Mack, in the introduction to his edition of Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Rinehart Editions 15 (New York and Toronto, 1948), p. xv.

On the mixture of jest and earnest in medieval literature, see Appendix rv to Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask (London, 1953), pp. 417–437. There is a long tradition connecting the realm of the erotic with comedy which suggests a comic side to the temptation scenes. See Walter Pabst, Novellentheorie und ovellendichtung, Zur Geschichte ihrer Antinomie in den romanischen Literaturen, Universitât Hamburg, Abhand-lungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde, Band 58, Reihe B, Band 32 (Hamburg, 1953), p. 25.