Nature In Sir Gawain And The Faerie Queene

Nature

Some of the most beautiful passages in classic British literature depict a character within the story one usually doesn’t think about. Stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Faerie Queene often depict nature as a character within the story itself. The role that nature plays within this literature can be divided into two parts; the setting and the theme. Using beautiful imagery the writers seek to convey to their readers that the activities of nature represent the danger, unknown, and mysterious aspect of life.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has a plethora of beautiful imagery. Within lines 2160 to 2200, the writer describes in great detail how the nature surrounding Sir Gawain looks. Describing the natural surroundings as a “wild place” with “saber-toothed stones” the writer advances the idea that nature is dangerous. The more the writer details what the Green Church looks like the more the reader feels as if Sir Gawain shouldn’t proceed. By incorporating Christian religious aspects, like Satan and hell, into the writer’s description of the natural surroundings they further depict just how horrible the

This story is heavily allegorical and uses nature to illustrate the darkness, danger, and death within the story. For example, in book 1 cantos 1 stanzas 7 through 14, Spenser describes the forest and natural surroundings of the area the Red Crosse knight and Una take shelter in. The characters of the story enter into the forest to escape the “tempest” storm but soon come across the monster Errours den. Spenser chooses to describe the setting as a perilous place that is “unknown and wild.” Again reaffirming to the reader that the surrounding nature is one of danger and death and the knight should not proceed. Spenser even goes as far as having Una warn her knight to turn back before something horrible