Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. The book is an important example of a chivalrics romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess.
About Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in brief
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. The poem survives in one manuscript, Cotton Nero A. x, which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Purity and Patience. All are thought to have been written by the same author, dubbed the \”Pearl Poet\” or \”Gawain Poet\”, since all four are written in a North West Midland dialect of Middle English. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J.R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations. It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious \”Green Knight\” who dares any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle where he is a guest. The Green Knight neither falls nor falters, but instead reaches out, picks up his severed head and remounts, holding up his bleeding head to Queen Guinevere while its writhing lips remind Gawain that the two must meet again at the Green Chapel. The next day the lady comes again, but Gawain again courteously foils her advances, and there is a similar exchange of a hunted boar for two kisses of a green gash of a sash of green girdle.
He keeps his side of the bargain, but she pleads with him to take a gold ring as well, but he keeps steadfastly that he keeps at least at least a gold gash at least. The tale ends with Gawain neatly beheads him in one stroke, but after he has killed the deer he gives it to her without divulging its source. The book is an important example of a chivalrics romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess. It was written in alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, and draws on Welsh, Irish and English stories, aswell as the French chivalrous tradition. The author is believed to have written it in the late 13th and early 14th century, but it is not known if it was written before or after the death of Arthur in 1066. It has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The story is about a knight who goes to Camelot on New Year’s Day to meet King Arthur and his nephew, Arthur’s son Gawain. The giant bends and bares his neck before him and Gawain nicely beheads the giant. Gawain then hangs it up as a trophy and encourages Guineever to treat the whole matter lightly.
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