Romance Motifs In “Sir Gawain And The Green Knight”

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Romance Motifs in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

(Quotations and page numbers are from Harrison, Keith, trans., int. and notes by Helen Cooper. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Oxford; Oxford World’s Classics: OUP, 1998. Middle English quotations and page numbers are from Cawley, A. C., ed. Pearl: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. London: J. M. Dent, 1962.)

1. General

Of the poem’s date:

“The precise date of the poems (Pearl, Patience, Purity and Sir Gawain) is … hard to pin down. It is generally agreed that the manuscript was copied no later than 1400, and that the poems were composed some time before that – conceivably as early as 1350, though the 1370s or 1380s would seem to be more likely from the details they give of the latest fashions in clothing and architecture.” (p.x.)

Of the Gawain-poet’s apparent influences:

“..the poet was well versed in courtly French literature. He knew the French allegory of love, The Romance of the Rose; and Sir Gawain itself shows his familiarity with French Arthurian romance.” (p.xii.)

Of the poem’s audience at the time:

“ Poetry was rarely written in the Middle Ages primarily for self-expression. Most often, as with other art forms, it would be produced for a known and appreciative reception group, or for a patron; and Sir John Stanley has increasingly been canvassed as a possible candidate for such a role. [..administrator and man of action who has some curious incidental connections with poetry and legend..]” (p.xiv)

“Sir Gawain itself, moreover, appears to have been written for a knight of the Garter, the order of chivalry instituted by Edward II in 1348, since the poem concludes with the founding of just such an order, and the motto of the Garter knights is inscribed at the end of the poem.” (p.xvi.)

Of the sources and parallels of plot elements in Sir Gawain:

“ The immediate antecedents of many of the plot elements of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight lie in French Arthurian romances, though it is unusual in not having any one single source. There is no source at all for the most distinctive of its story motifs, the knight who is green not only in clothing but in skin and hair as well. Its principal plot motif, by contrast, the invitation to behead a challenger in return for being beheaded later, appears in a number of texts and can be traced as far back as Irish legend. The version closest to that of Sir Gawain, and most certainly known to the poet, appears in the Livre de Caradoc, part of the ‘First Continuation’ of the Conte Huxtable 2 del Graal, otherwise known as Perceval, which the late 12th century writer Chrétien de Troyes had left uncompleted.” [Here the beheaded knight returns, strikes with the flat of the sword and reveals himself to be Carados’ father.] (p.xvii)

Of Gawain’s centrality within English Arthurian tradition:

“ The transference of another knight’s French adventures [see Perceval] onto an English Gawain is an indicator of Gawain’s centrality in the English Arthurian tradition. He had initially emerged as a major character in Arthurian history in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century History of the Kings of Britain, in which he is Arthur’s right-hand warrior in his campaigns of European conquest.” (p.xviii.)

Of Gawain’s loss of status in French Arthurian tradition:

“He appears frequently in the verse romances of Chrétian de Troyes, from the end of the century, but only in supporting roles: his function is to serve as a foil to the heroes of the various romances, by their proving their prowess in contrast against him, or, in the Conte de Graal, by serving as a type of secular chivalry in contrast to the hero Perceval’s more religious model. In another of Chrétian’s romances, he is displaced altogether by the knight who has become Arthur’s closest associate in the French tradition, Lancelot. It is Lancelot who is the central character after Arthur himself (or even in preference to Arthur) in the great Vulgate cycle of French prose romances of the 13th century, where 1Gawain slips even further down the ethical and chivalric scale, to the point where he often functions as an antitype of good knighthood.” (p.xviii-xix.)

Of Gawain’s brand of courtesy and chivalry:

“In England, Gawain remains what he had been in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History, Arthur’s principal knight. He is constantly associated in both traditions with courtesy, but in different senses. In the French, he is skilled at what the Gawain-poet calls love- talking: this is the reputation that appears to have run ahead of him to Bertilak’s castle [see e.g. 924-7]. In the English his courtesy shows on a much broader front (such as being particularly kind to novice knights, or, in the Carl, covering his host’s rain-wet horse with his own cloak), and he combines fearless prowess with the arts of social, rather than sexual intercourse. The Gawain-poet was clearly familiar with both the English and the French traditions, and brings them into dynamic, and slightly comic, opposition in the scenes in the poem in Gawain’s bedchamber.” (p.xx.)

Of the building blocks of romance writing and the Gawain-poet’s transformation of them:

“ The familiarity of the building blocks of romance … does not require an author always to build the same edifice with them. Far more effect can be gained through surprise or suspense when a writer appears to follow the rules of a genre but in fact breaks them. (…) The Gawain-poet … takes the familiar ingredients of an Arthurian setting, a quest, a supernatural antagonist, and a return from apparently unavoidable death, and makes of them something that transforms romance itself." (pp.xxi-xxii.) 2. ‘Type’ Motifs 1 Compare with the descent of Criseida’s moral reputation. Huxtable 3

(In this section I will outline ten typical romance themes that can be found in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The peculiarities of the Gawain-poet’s treatment of them will not be deeply explored. The most basic conventions of setting [distant in space and time], people [kings, knights and ladies], actions [quests / pursuit of ideals], and endings [happy / instructive], I will state now, are all to some extent discoverable in the text. The following section on ‘token’ motifs will address more the Gawain-poet’s specific handling of ‘types’.)

1. Narrative Strategy

Sir Gawain is a story written as if to be heard, not read. The narrator gives us a potted history of Britain – rich in legend – and then introduces his tale as something he has heard ‘told in town’ [31ff.]. The narrator appeals to an audience for whom the story, or at least its characters and setting, are ‘well known’. As such he places his own creation within an accepted canon of fiction.

2. Expectancy, Anticipation and Suspense

In Gawain we (the reader or hearer) are given a story that both generates expectations regarding romance conventions and thwarts them. The telling’s linear progression heightens suspense, and so it is to the genuine surprise of the audience (obviously only for a first reading) that the poet unfolds his story, especially the ending. (Only afterwards do we realize that the linear aspect of the tale conceals a mirror reflectivity.)

3. Opportunity for Expansion

As Cooper says regarding most chivalric tales, “Along the way, adventures can be multiplied and digressions followed at the will of the writer.” (p. xxii.) In Sir Gawain this opportunity occurs after Gawain sets out on his quest to find the Green Chapel. One can imagine that his adventures in transit (the dragons and wolves, etc. [720ff.]) could be fleshed out by a particularly enthusiastic storyteller, at the expense of the Gawain-poet’s desire to flash past and reveal the true heartland of his tale.

4. The Intrusion of an Unknown Element that Sparks off the Action

The quest is set up via the familiar plot device of the arrival of a stranger, who throws down a challenge to Arthur’s court. This is bedded into the story well using another typical motif, that of Arthur’s curious decree that he won’t eat until something extraordinary happens or a feat of courage in battle has been witnessed [91ff.]. “In Sir Gawain however, this is the point at which such privileged knowledge stops.” (p.xxiii.) The presentation of the stranger and what he does is radically reinvented by the Gawain-poet.

5. The Dressing and Arming for a Quest Huxtable 4

On two occasions the Gawain-poet has his hero go through the typical romance activity of dressing and arming before going out into the world to face the adventures entailed by his quest. The first departure from Arthur’s court [566ff.] sees a typical itemization of a knight’s gear of war presented. The special element here is, of course, the description and discussion of Gawain’s pentangle; an honourable device as might be worn by a knight, but also a profoundly significant metaphor that must be explained to help deliver the full moral weight of the story. The second ‘dressing for action’ scene occurs just before Gawain’s departure from Bertilak’s castle [2012ff.] to face the Green Knight. Here again a typical event carries more significant weight as Gawain’s wearing of the girdle over his pentangle reinforces the symbolism of the whole story.

6. The Cycle of the Year

The role of Nature’s unending cycle is used with typical (and beyond) effect in Sir Gawain. At the aesthetic level the poet uses typical imagery of the seasons to bring out emotions and atmospheres (esp. winter and dread before the fated confrontation in the Green Chapel [1998ff.]). At the level of metaphor, the line from New Year to New Year, set between the celebrations of Christ’s birth, brings out the themes of life’s journey, mortality, judgement and eschatological verification (presumably, given the moral tone of the poem). Note that from this vantage point one is tempted to see the figure of the Green Knight in divine terms, as the pronouncer of judgement.

7. The Supernatural

The story of Sir Gawain typically contains many supernatural elements: his antagonist’s immortality and ‘greenness’; the magic girdle that (it is claimed) serves as a talisman of protection; the various monsters and beasties that are mentioned in passing, to be vanquished by the travelling Gawain; and, most mysterious of all, the figure of Morgan le Fay, who residing at Bertilak’s castle, seems to be at the back of all that is weird and wonderful in the tale. The use of the supernatural (in the magical sense) is also typically contrasted with the Christian supernatural of divine protection and moral judgement. Gawain appeals to Mary for help on occasion, and it is to Mary that the narrator commits the conduct of the sexually tempted knight. This curious mixture of pagan and Christian ‘super-sensibilities’ is a type motif. However, the Gawain-poet’s use of the magical to cast judgement on the Christian is fascinating.

8. Gamesmanship and Honour

Under this ‘type’ motif we can bring in many diverse aspects of Sir Gawain: the central role of the beheading pact between Gawain and the Green Knight [287ff.]; the honour-bound agreement between Gawain and Bertilak to exchange the profits of ‘the hunt’ [1105ff.]; the game of ‘love-talk’ between Gawain and Bertilak’s wife [1210ff.]; Gawain’s acceptance of the girdle (as a double ‘pact-breaking’ love-token and self- preserver) [1863ff.]; and the ultimate revelation and judgement scene whereby Gawain’s performance in the true trial is presented as a failure of the unremitting dictates of honour [2339ff.]. Although the typical ideas of chivalry and honour are all here, the Gawain-poet’s use of them is so sophisticated as to raise many fundamental questions about their very nature. Huxtable 5

9. Moral Instruction as well as Entertainment

The Green Knight’s pronouncement of Gawain’s failure of the quest and Gawain’s own sense of failure and shame cast the story in a morally instructive light. Entertainment has been had along the way, but at the end of the day a moral evaluation of a knight’s conduct is given for the purposes of moral instruction and edification [2338ff.]. The uniqueness of Sir Gawain is in the fact of his actually failing the quest (even if only in his own eyes) and thereby serving as a reverse (negative) example or model. It is this failure that also gives Sir Gawain a power beyond that of other more typical romances – wherein the perfection of chivalrous conduct is seen achieved by special, seemingly superhuman characters, and hence made all the more remote and unbelievable for the average listener.

10. Conformity of Beginning with End

As the tale began with the description of Brutus’ Britain that leads into Arthur’s court, so does it end with Arthur’s court leading out to Brutus’ Isle and the final motto, (Honi Soyt Qui Mal Pense), thus providing the story with typical cyclic resolution. More than this however is the book’s mirror reflectivity down the centre line - the seduction scenes wherein the real trial of Gawain takes place – a form that is only understandable having heard the conclusion. As such the parts of the story fall into place. Ultimately, Sir Gawain differs from type by also rendering an ending that leaves all things the same as they were at the beginning, but at the same time feeling unnervingly different. Gawain’s honour has been dented, and the honour and reputation of Arthur’s court somehow changed as a result. The fact that everyone adopts the green girdle of Gawain’s shame is not an accident. In summary therefore, the Gawain-poet’s version of this typical motif is again extremely thought provoking, as he says, “Our endings rarely square with our beginnings.” [499]

3. ‘ Token’ Motifs

(In this section I will quote specific lines from the text and draw out specific romance motifs as they are employed by the Gawain-poet.)