The Color Green in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, set apart by its “secular subject and romance form” (Prior 92), portrays many ideas and customs related to the understandings of chivalry, law, and religion. However, much more is to be understood when reading this Arthurian “tale of enchantment” (Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight), like the color green. This color can stand for many different things, but in this specific poem it symbolizes nature, supernatural, and monstrosity to support the Green Knight’s reasoning for challenging Arthur’s knights.
When first introduced, the Green Knight’s green hue and the items that he brings with him force a visual relationship that he has with nature. Along with
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His stature, supernatural abilities, and green skin forces on him the resemblance of a monster-like creature. Literary critic Alden Wood wrote, “Aside from his massive stature, wild hair, ‘berd as a busk’/ ‘beard like a bush’ and the troublesome fact that he is entirely green, the Green Knight’s vestments suggest those of a knight of sufficient stature to reside in Arthur’s court” (Wood 102). Wood explains that, yes, the Green Knight is green and he is large, and this would alone classify him as a type of monster compared to the human race; however, his attire and the way in which he carries himself resembles that of a knight of Arthur as he is “handsome and impeccably dressed” (Martin 311). Arthur’s people are too mesmerized by his entrance and unappealing physical features, rather than his striking ones, to further examine his inner, honorable qualities. Not only do his physical features favor that of a foreigner, so does his proposal to Arthur’s kingdom. Martin wrote, “The Green Knight’s proposal to endure a decapitating stroke in return for the chance to deal one himself appears to subvert the tenses of courtly civility…manifesting qualities alien to the courtly community” (Martin 311). Arthur’s people do not only find his green skin and large body odd and terrifying, they find his challenge just as inhumane. Combining this insane proposal of a fatal game, and the green coloration of his skin, the Green Knight is seen as a
The most obvious reason why the green knight is green are stated throughout his introduction. "Fellow, and his hands were green, and his face. And his armor, and his shirt, were green, all green...everything about him was elegant green" (line 150-55,66). Every piece of clothing that the Green Knight is in is green. His skin color was green and he was elegantly dressed in all of it. This gigantic man was the total opposite of Arthur's Knights. They were smaller and clean-. The Green Knight had a manly beard to symbolize Celtic culture. He rides in on his great green horse! "He seemed half an ogre, a giant, but clearly the biggest creature in the world" (line 141-42). The most frightening thing any of the Knights of Camelot could ever see. The combined aspect of being green and a giant to the knights is what makes him so frightening.
The Green Knight is a mysterious being where his actions are often left up for interpretation. The Green Knight is a supporter of the law and its justice system. The Knight who is viewed as monstrous does not have the typical monstrous personality however it is supernatural. As stated in the poem, “He met with the lord in the midst of the floor, and all with joy did him greet, and gladly he said:‘I shall fulfill the first our contract now, that we settled so speedily sparing no drink.’Then he clasped the lord and kissed him thrice, as strongly and steadily as he well could.‘By Christ,’ quoth the other, ‘you’ve found much luck in transacting this trade, if your profit was good.’” By creating a verbal contract with Sir Gawain, it shows the Green Knight has a binding trust with the law and justice system of his society. The Knight who is in respect with the law and justice system of the society forms a connection between the wilderness and natural
Many human beings recognize the color red as a meaning of love; however, the meaning of passion and violence comes to mind during this late fourteenth-century poem. The symbol of the color red presented throughout the poem, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” represents passion and violence. The meaning of passion was disbelieving at first; however, after rereading, it was easy to notice Sir Gawain’s passion to be the one to accept the challenge to the Green Knight. Before King Arthur was about to strike the Green Knight, Gawain stepped in and said, “I stake my claim. May this melee be mine” (341-342). Clearly, he was passionate enough to risk his own life in the future, only to cut the Green Knights head off. The color red symbolizes as an
Sir Gawain and The Green Knight has prompted scholars to examine and diversely interpret the medieval narrative. One of the underlying questions that has been proposed embodies the analysis of the relationship between Christian and Pagan ideals and how knightly chivalry is influenced by religion during the Arthurian Romance period. It is no mistake that the two varied religious ideals are intertwined throughout the poem due to the nature of classical antiquity. Amidst the overlap between superstitious rituals and Orthodox- Christian beliefs it is clear that Sir Gawain has a sense of personal integrity guided by a moral compass.
shall fare forth to find you, so far as I may, and this I say
King Arthur stands up and speaks to the Green Knight, obviously excited by the thought of the tales that this stranger will tell. The Knight offers a challenge to anyone brave enough to accept it. The Green Knight will allow his opponent to strike his neck with the large ax that he holds. The opponent must travel to the Green Knight's castle in one year to accept a similar blow in return. When none of the knights volunteer, Arthur rises to accept the Green Knight's challenge. Sir Gawain, the youngest of King Arthur's knights, asks to be allowed to stand in for his king.
As W.R.J Barron says, ‘the elements [of the Green Knight] are familiar, but their fusion in one person is unacceptable, incomprehensible’. The court is stunned into ‘swoghe sylence’ (l. 242) for several moments, seemingly unable to process the almost-apparitional figure who has entered the civilised space. The poet adds that the silence was ‘not al for doute [fear], / Bot sum for cortaysye’ (ll. 246-7): the reaction is inappropriate (because these chivalric knights should not be afraid), yet completely justified, as they are showing respect for the impressive figure. The Green Knight, then, is an example of the Lacanian extimité, the ‘embedded alien’. He is the ‘intimate that is radically Other’, recognisable to the court as a fellow ‘cortays knyƷt’ (l. 276) but also a ‘selly’ (‘marvel’; l. 239) who might not be fully human. He is a symbol of liminality, embodying both ‘self’ and ‘Other’, ‘civilisation’ and ‘wild’. The items the Green Knight carries with him only further frustrate the ability to definitively categorise him; in one hand, he carries ‘a hoge and vnmete’ (l. 208) axe, whilst the other holds ‘a sprig of holly as a sign of peace and goodwill.’ Further, he refers to his challenge as a ‘Crystemas gomen’ (l. 283), but the violence of his request conflicts with the idea of it as a mere ‘game’. The unclear intentions only
The greatest part of these studies have involved the middle-English text Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 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.
In those lines the description of the Green Knight was like describing an immortal god, for example: “a fearful form, framed in the door: a mountain of a man, immeasurably high, a hulk of a human from head to hips, so long and thick in his loins and limbs I should genuinely judge him to be half giant, or a massive man, the mightiest of mortals” (136-141). In this small section of the passage, the narrator goes into extensive detail about the Green Knights physical being and how his appearance is adequately intimidating. The Green Knights appearance is significant because throughout the story he is a very bullish individual. When the Green Knight challenges King Arthur’s court as well as Arthur himself to partake in the game he wants to perform, when no one obliges, the Green Knight questions the king and his court fearlessly. “So here is the House of Arthur”, he scoffed “whose virtues reverberate across vast realms”.
In the anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the character of Sir Gawain is portrayed as the imperfect hero. His flaws create interest and intrigue. Such qualities of imperfection cannot be found in the symbol of the pentangle, which he displays on his shield. This contrast between character and symbol is exposed a number of times throughout the poem allowing human qualities to emerge from Gawain’s knightly portrayal. The expectations the pentangle presents proves too much for Gawain as he falls victim to black magic, strays from God, is seduced by an adulterous woman, and ultimately breaks the chivalric code by lying to the Green Knight.
In the most general sense, the Green Knight is an anomaly to the story of " Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the only supernatural element in what is otherwise a very believable and wholly real rendering of a specific length of time. Gawain is momentarily tricked into believing‹or, rather, hoping‹that the garter is magical in nature, but both his fear and the Green Knight dispel him of that heathen notion. Thus on the one hand the poet warns us of the danger of accepting the supernatural qua supernatural, while on the other he demands that we understand the Green Knight to be an expression of the "power of Morgan le Fay," who is "well taught in magic arts." The effect of this then is to thrust the Green Knight into an even greater shroud of mystery than normal for Arthurian tales, which usually feature a whole cast of impossible characters.
Green Knight is giant-sized, completely green, including hair and skin, and riding a green horse.
The story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provides an excellent example of Hyde’s trickster figure in the character of Bernlak, also known as Bertilak, Bercilak, or simply as the Green Knight. The tale of Sir Gawain pits him against the daunting and formidable Green Knight; a mystical and intriguing character, who rode into Arthur’s court, brandishing a great axe and clad all in green. He challenges the knights to a game, and only after Arthur concedes to play the Green Knight’s game, does Gawain instead offer to take his place, thus setting in motion the story. In Sir Gawain, the Green Knight displays several key characteristics of Hyde’s trickster such as: crossing boundaries, being contradictory, and questioning
As this mythical poem begins readers are quickly introduced to the pinnacle of this “pyramid of power”, the king and queen. King Arthur and his “full beauteous” wife Queen Guinevere were “set in the midst, placed on the rich dais adorned all about” (Neilson 3). During this time, royal monarchs often hosted large illustrious gatherings in order to display their wealth, prestige and power. This display of rank is evident when the all powerful “King Arthur and the other knights watch approvingly as Sir Gawain advances” to take the place of his cherished king and accept the Green Knights challenge (Swanson 1). Randy Schiff further clarifies the difference between kings and knights in medieval times when he states, “ Displaying his mastery of courtly deference, Gawain in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” publicly defines himself through kinship, telling Arthur that he is praiseworthy only “for as much” as Arthur is his “em” (uncle)”(1). In the fourteenth century feudal system the top ranking social class position belong to the king and the queen.
Approximately 6000 years ago in the late 1300’s, a poem by the title of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” was written by an anonymous author. The poem was initially written in medieval literature with a very unique rhyme scheme, but was later translated to regular English for the purpose of studying and reading by high school students and researchers.