Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an anonymous author some time during the fourteenth century, reflects many of the religious, political and social aspects illustrated in other literary works of the time. The author, a contemporary of Chaucer, lived during a time when gallantry, loyalty and honor defined a true man. During this period, Christianity was prevalent, and inherent human weakness was commonly accepted.
The author begins the poem with the mention of the siege and destruction of Troy, said to be a result of the traitorous acts of the "knight that had knotted the nets of deceit" (Norton 3), Aeneas. The knights who survive this destruction go on to build the great empires of that time:
Great Romulus to Rome repairs in haste; / With boast and with bravery builds he that city / And names it with his own name, that it now bears. / Ticius to Tuscany, and towers raises, / Langobard in Lombardy lays out homes / And far over the French Sea, Felix Brutus / On many broad hills and high Britain he sets, / most fair (8 - 15).
The author focuses on Britain, and the worthy knights bred here, saying: "Bold boys bred there, in broils delighting, / That did in their day many a deed most dire / More marvels have happened in this merry land / Than in any other I know, since that olden time" (21 - 24). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is just one of many stories surrounding these "bold boys" from the original land of the Arthurian legends. "The story is set in Camelot, the court of the legendary King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, during an extraordinary Christmas celebration. The court is relatively new, and the nobles of the land are still young. During this celebration, a st...
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...eemer of an imperfect humankind seem to be emphasized throughout the literary works of this century. The religious and moral values are summed up by the final lines of the poem: "May He that was crowned with thorn / Bring all men to His bliss! Amen. / Hony Soyt Qui Mal Pense" 2524 - 2531). "Shame be to the man who has evil in his mind," might very well be the lesson the author wanted to relay to his or her audience.
Works Cited
"THE CHURCHILL SOCIETY LONDON." The Most Noble Order of the Garter. Online. Internet. 20 November, 2000. Available http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/garter.html
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh Edition. Volume 1. New York: 2000.
Zhong, Vivian. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Online. Internet. 20 November, 2000. Available http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/projs993d/main.htm
8[8] Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Marie Borroff. Norton Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1, New York: WW Norton, 1993.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in the fourteenth century by an anonymous poet who was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer. The story was originally written in a Northern dialect. It tells the story of Sir Gawain's first adventure as a knight.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight takes its protagonist, the noble Gawain, through
Barron, W.R.J., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.. New York: Manchester University Press, 1974.
In the opening scene Sir Gawain faces his first trial when the Green Knight proposes his “Christmas game.” The room falls silent for “If he astonished them at first, stiller were then/ All that household in hall, the high and low;” (lines 301-302). The Green Knight begins to mock the court; and then boldly, King Arthur accepts h...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume One. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1993.
Fitzgerald suggests that fantasy never matches reality by looking at the consequences of Gatsby’s confusing dreams and reality. Gatsby creates a high illusionary Daisy, therefore, these expectations of Daisy cannot be met. This can also be seen by noticing how as Gatsby approaches the end of this journey of acquiring Daisy, the journey becomes pointless, and the outcomes in his fantasy differ from those in reality. Countless individuals today make this same mistake of confusing dreams and reality, and looking to Jay Gatsby as an example, this mistake may harm them in the future.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Brian Stone. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 222-77. Print.
Markman, Alan M. "The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Modern Language Association 72.4 (1957): 574-86. JSTOR. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
The Character of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell
The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight revolves around the knights and their chivalry as well as their romance through courtly love. The era in which this story takes place is male-dominated, where the men are supposed to be brave and honorable. On the other hand, the knight is also to court a lady and to follow her commands. Sir Gawain comes to conflict when he finds himself needing to balance the two by being honorable to chivalry as well as respectful to courtly love.
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.
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.
The act of driving itself already demands a great amount of focus and concentration from the driver. Adding a cell phone to the picture introduces additional challenges for the brain. Researchers at Monash University's Accident Research Centre have shown that multi-tasking between driving and text messaging increases the mental workload causing higher levels of stress and frustration . For instance, stress is heightened when shifting from driving on a local route to entering a highway or vice versa. Using a phone (checking a text message, posting a Facebook status) contributes to increasing the complexity of the task at hand. This exhausts the brain, weakens the operator’s driving abilities, and compromises th...
The cell phone however, while convenient, will often lead to many hazardous accidents and sometimes deaths. While most will admit using a cell phone while driving is dangerous, many still do it. Distracted driving as a whole should been seen as a violent act of selfishness closely related to murderous intent. The use of a cell phone behind the wheel is just like being drunk behind the wheel so it is easy to imagine thousands of people driving throughout the day “drunk”. David L. Strayer, Professor at the University of Utah in Cognition and Neural Science, reveals in his research “A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver” that “people who drive while talking on their cell phones are as impaired as drunk drivers with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 %”(Strayer). With this in mind it is no wonder Distracted driving is a common factor in collisions. This can be understood in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s article, “NHTSA Policy and FAQs on Cellular Phone Use While Driving”. In the article, the NHTSA concedes that “driving distractions, including the use of cell phones, contribute to 25% of all traffic crashes” (NHTSA.gov). The reader should keep in mind that distracted driving is closely related to cell phone