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The Complications of Sexuality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Gawain's travels in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight suggest a world in which home--i.e., Camelot--is "normal," while away--the opposing castle of Hautdesert where Gawain perforce spends his Christmas vacation--is "other," characterized by unfamiliarity, dislocation, perversity. And in fact the atmosphere at Hautdesert appears somewhat peculiar, with various challenges to "normal" sexual identity, and with permutations of physical intimacy, or at least the suggestion of such intimacy, that are, to say the least, surprising. The typical journey of medieval romance juxtaposes a "real" world where things and people behave according to expectation with a "magical" world in which the usual rules are suspended. According to this paradigm, we might expect that this poem would place Hautdesert outside the bounds of tradition, separated by its difference from the expectations that govern Camelot and the remainder of the Arthurian world.
However, Gawain's journey away from Camelot and back is framed by references, in the first and last stanzas, to the journeys into exile of Aeneas and of Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain, that complicate this apparent opposition. As this paper will argue, this framework complicates the poem's presentation of gender and sexuality. Rather than a clear opposition between, say, marital sexuality and everything else, we find a situation in which potentially adulterous acts and kisses among men are vested with varied--and shifting--values. The poem uses references to the (imagined) British past to complicate any simple reading of the tale it tells in terms of sexual morality or transgression.1
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight opens with a summary of the events leading from the fall of Troy to the establishment of Britain:
Siþen þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye, þe borgh brittened and brent to brondez and askez, þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroght
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe:
Hit watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde, þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneghe of al þe wele in þe west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swyþe,
With gret bobbaunce þat burghe he biges vpon fyrst,
And neuenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;
Tirius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyft...
... middle of paper ...
...e is once again surrounded by the familiar faces of Arthur's knights, this return cannot undo what he has experienced, does not unwrite what the poet has written. The return of the endless knot to the place of its beginning does not negate the existence of the pattern that has been created.
Bertilak "reads" the ominous and the disruptive in Layamon's depiction of the origins of Britain. By locating the story of Gawain's flirtation with Lady Bertilak within the context of Layamon's chronicle of treason in Troy as well as at Camelot, the Gawain-poet complicates any reading of Camelot and Hautdesert as opposed places with opposed valuations. Treason is already and always present at Camelot, named with obscure referent in the first stanza of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--and this very obscurity points to the difficulty of reaching any conclusions surrounding gender or sexuality in the poem. The use of history shows that femininity, masculinity, normative sexuality and transgression are all difficult, perhaps impossible, to define. Gawain, of course, does not read Brut, and is therefore left floundering in search of a finality which is unobtainable within the world of this poem.
Thermodynamics is essentially how heat energy transfers from one substance to another. In “Joe Science vs. the Water Heater,” the temperature of water in a water heater must be found without measuring the water directly from the water heater. This problem was translated to the lab by providing heated water, fish bowl thermometers, styrofoam cups, and all other instruments found in the lab. The thermometer only reaches 45 degrees celsius; therefore, thermodynamic equations need to be applied in order to find the original temperature of the hot water. We also had access to deionized water that was approximately room temperature.
Morgan, Gerald. "Medieval misogyny and Gawain's outburst against women in 'Sir Gawain and the green Knight'." The Modern Language Review 97.2 (2002): 265+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
Sir Gawain is presented as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous. He is the perfect knight; he is so recognised by the various characters in the story and, for all his modesty, implicitly in his view of himself. To the others his greatest qualities are his knightly courtesy and his success in battle. To Gawain these are important, but he seems to set an even higher value on his courage and integrity, the two central pillars of his manhood.
When Gawain shows up at the Green Knight’s chapel, his mere presence provides comfort to his host, who greets him: “Sir so sweet, you honour the trysts you owe.” Perhaps the green gallant had been expecting Gawain, as representative of the crumbling House of Arthur, to be derelict in his duties. Gawain lives up to his good name. Similarly, he resisted the unbearable temptations of Lady Bertilak on numerous occasions, providing a mere kiss, in accordance with the code of chivalry.
The Arthurian legends of Iwein and Gawain and the Green Knight are two examples of the medieval initiation story: a tale in which a character, usually in puberty or young adulthood, leaves home to seek adventures and, in the process, maturity. Through the course of their adventures, including a meeting with the man of the wilderness, temptations at the hands of women, and a permanent physical or mental wounding, the character grows from adolescent awkwardness and foolishness to the full potential knightly honor. While both Arthurian legends fit this format, the depth of character development, specifically in terms of relationships, is vastly different. Whereas Gawain and the Green Knight does little more with relationships than demonstrate the evils of female temptations, Iwein effectively explores the formation, destruction, and resurrection of numerous male and female relationships.
...h century or today, is human and subject to failings, as well. Gawain learned his lesson from the Green Knight and communicated it to Arthur's court. I believe that the author hopes that his audience will take the message to heart, as well.
Extensive work has been done on this alliterative four-part poem written by an anonymous contemporary of Chaucer. Feminists have attacked his diatribe against women at the end, or analyzed the interaction between Gawain and the women of Bercilak’s court; those of the D. W. Robertson school seek the inevitable biblical allusions and allegory concealed within the medieval text; Formalists and philologists find endless enjoyment in discovering the exact meaning of certain ambiguous and archaic words within the story. Another approach that yields interesting, if somewhat dated, results, is a psychological or archetypal analysis of the poem. By casting the Green Knight in the role of the Jungian Shadow, Sir Gawain’s adventure to the Green Chapel becomes a journey of self-discovery and a quest – a not entirely successful one – for personal individuation. The Jungian process of individuation involves “.... ...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 162-213.
In Gordon M. Shedd’s “Knight in Tarnished Armour: The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, he argues that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is truly about the strength and weaknesses of human nature. One particularly interesting part of his argument asserts that Gawain’s humanity broke medieval romance tradition.
Marie De France’s Lanval is a remarkable short narrative that engages the reader into a world filled with unrealistic elements, but enhances on the true meaning of romance, chivalry and nature during the years that King Arthur reigned. “Sir Gawain and The Green Knight” unfortunately does not have an author that can be recognized but this epic poem demonstrates the ghastly adventure of a knight who decides to defend the honor of young King Arthur against a supernatural being in this malicious game of cat and mouse. Both of these pieces of literature have enchanting characteristics that define them as a masterpiece of their era and that’s why they both are easily compared and contrasted. In addition, both Lanval and “Sir Gawain and The Green Knight” can be classified as similar through their themes, style and plots, although they are different through their language and diction. Even though both of these literatures can be viewed as similar as well as contrasting, in the end, each of these tales have illuminated the realm of fantasy throughout the court of King Arthur.
The purpose of this experiment is to try to find the original temperature of the hot water in the heater using the 60 degrees C thermometer. Use your 60°C thermometer, and any materials available in your laboratory, to determine the temperature of the water in the coffee pot. During this experiment we calculated the original temperature of a heater after it had been cooled down, and we did this by measuring hot, cold, and warm water, with a thermometer that had tape covering 60 degrees and up. When preformed each of these experiments with each temperature of water, plugging them into the equation (Delta)(Ti – hot – Tf) T Hot x Cp x Mass(Cold) = (Delta)(Tf – Ti – Cold) T Cold x Cp x Mass(Hot)(d
Bloch, R. Howard. Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem which tells the tale of a knight who undergoes trials-testing the attributes of knighthood-in order to prove the strength and courage of himself, while representing the Knights of the Round Table. One of King Arthurs most noblest and bravest of knights, Sir Gawain, is taken on an adventure when he steps up to behead a mysterious green visitor on Christmas Day-with the green mans’ permission of course. Many would state that this tale of valor would be within the romance genre. To the modern person this would be a strange category to place the poem in due to the question of ‘where is the actual romance, where is the love and woe?’ However, unlike most romances nowadays, within medieval literature there are many defining features and characteristics of a romance-them rarely ever really involving love itself. Within medieval literature the elements of a romance are usually enshrouded in magic, the fantastic and an adventure. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight follows Sir Gawain over the course of one year, from one New Years to the next, as was the deal he and Bertilak, the green knight, struck.
The practice of improving the beauty of others may seem insignificant to some but for those in process of studying the cosmetology industry take great pride in the work they hope to produce. Hair stylist and nail technicians improve the way people look and feel about oneself to better improve self confidence; cosmetologist strive to do the best they can to achieve the look that their client may be searching for. However, these techniques must be taught thoroughly and without the proper teaching techniques, the upcoming cosmetologist may feel behind and uncertain about their abilities when performing on clients. Without the proper and professional ways of teaching, the student struggle to ever gain success in the business; this business builds only from the repetition of great work and failing to achieve the overall style of the desired look from the client will result in a failing business. The search of finding a successful and up to date school requires more work than one may assume.