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Sir Gawain

This study will investigate the character of Sir Gawain in the masterpiece of Middle English narrative poetry, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Specifically, the study will focus on the question of the conflict between Gawain's temptation vs. con-science (i.e, guilt), the conflict between his Christian and knightly inclinations, and the conflict between the virtues of his chivalric code and the human choice of temptation and conscience. In addition, the study will compare Gawain's character as it is depicted in the poem of which he is the major character, and in other works in which he is merely a secondary character. The emphasis of this latter concern will be on Gawain's role in Thomas Malory's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.

Quennell compares the treatment of knighthood and the chivalric code in Chaucer and in the author of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Quennell says that while Chaucer and his era were able to laugh at the code, having lost their sense of awe. And the creator of Sir Gawain "was . . . steeped in the chivalric spirit of the Middle Ages, for whom the court of King Arthur, and the moral code it symbolized, must have seemed very much more real than the existing court at Westminster" (Quennell 17-18). The author of the poem gave his work this sense of belief in the code, in the qualities of knighthood and chivalry. Sir Gawain in the poem does not consciously or philosophically waver from the code. For to him and his creator the question is not whether to live like a Christian or like a knight, but rather how to live like a knight. The fact that there are indeed Christian elements in the poem does not alter the essentially knighthood-oriented force of Sir Gawain's personality. As Quennell writes, the actions of Gawain "preserve his reputation as a truly Christian knight, an example of Continence and Courtesy, Liberality, Loving-kindness and Piety, the surpassing virtue. The complex symbolism of (t...

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Sir Gawain. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 02:24, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1686778.html