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Symbolism in sir gawain and the green knight essay
Imagery and symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
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Individuation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain is, undoubtably, the most varied of the Arthurian characters: from his first minor appearance as Gwalchmei in the Welsh tales to his usually side-line participation in the modern retelling of the tales, no other character has gone from such exalted heights (being regarded as a paragon of virtue) to such dismal depths (being reduced to a borderline rapist, murderer, and uncouth bore), as he. This degree of metamorphosis in character, however, has allowed for a staggering number of different approaches and studies in Gawain. The greatest part of these studies have involved the middle-English text Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Extensive work has been done on this alliterative four-part poem written by an anonymous contemporary of Chaucer: feminists have attacked his diatribe against women at the end, or analyzed the interaction between Gawain and the women of Bercilak’s court; those of the D. W. Robertson school seek the inevitable biblical allusions and allegory concealed within the medieval text; Formalists and philologists find endless enjoyment in discovering the exact meaning of certain ambiguous and archaic words within the story. Another approach that yields interesting, if somewhat dated, results, is a Psychological or Archetypal analysis of the poem. By casting the Green Knight in the role of the Jungian Shadow, Sir Gawain’s adventure to the Green Chapel becomes a journey of self-discovery and a quest - a not entirely successful one - for personal individuation. The Jungian process of individuation involves “. . . a psychological growing up, the process of discovering those aspects of one’s self that make one an individual differe... ... middle of paper ... ... until he does complete his quest of individuation, he shall never be nor feel whole. Works Cited and Consulted Anonymous, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, eds. Abrams, et al. (New York: Norton, 1993), 200. Carl Gustav Jung, “The Principle Archetypes” in The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 666. Guerin, Wilfred L., et al., eds. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1992. Lacy, Norris J. and Geoffrey Ashe. The Arthurian Handbook. New York: Garland Publishing, 1988. Stephen Manning, “A Psychological Interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” in Critical Studies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, eds. Donald R. Howard and Christian Zacher (Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, 1968), 279.
Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Harper & Row,
... that much more change is needed in Gawain’s society, for the other knights are unable to grasp the meaning of the belt--they all regard it as a symbol of bravery and honor, and not of humility and excessive pride. Thus, as Adam and Eve create a world of sin for their posterity, so will all the knights who fail to see the true value of Gawain’s experiences.
Barron, W.R.J., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.. New York: Manchester University Press, 1974.
Sir Gawain is presented as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous. He is the perfect knight; he is so recognised by the various characters in the story and, for all his modesty, implicitly in his view of himself. To the others his greatest qualities are his knightly courtesy and his success in battle. To Gawain these are important, but he seems to set an even higher value on his courage and integrity, the two central pillars of his manhood.
Burrow, J.A. "From The Third Fitt." Twentieth Century Interpretations of 'Sir Gawain and the Green
Thesis Statement: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shows the struggle between a good Christian man against the temptations of this world.
“Culture does not make people. People make culture” said Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and educator, in a presentation on feminism in a TedTalk. The culture in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written was misogynistic and it shows in the writing of the poem. Medieval cultural misogyny manifests itself in multiple ways in SGGK. This paper will examine the negative relationships between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and gender by discussing: the representation of female characters, gendered violence, and Christianity in the Middle Ages.
Web. 30 Sept. 2009. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt.
As J.A. Burrow has recently reminded us, Middle English literature "requires the silent reader to resist, if he can, the tyranny of the eye and to hear. Certain of the writings ... make a further requirement. They treat the reader, not just as a hearer, but as an audience or group of hearers" (Medieval Writers 1). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is such a poem, a literate composition designed for oral performance, bearing the imprint of a poet skilled at once in manipulating a text and using it to affect his audience in ways outside the scope of the oral poet. It is with this dynamic between text and audience in mind that I approach the process of "re-hearing" Sir Gawain. In doing so I hope to achieve some clarification of what Tolkien referred to as one of the "structural failures" of the poem the failure of Mary, Gawain's protectress, to receive any further acknowledgement after Gawain twice asks her help, during his journey and in the final temptation scene.
The first symbol in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that I will discuss is Sir Gawain’s knightly shield. On Gawain’s shield is a pentangle, the five points on this pentangle represent the five virtues of the perfect knight; piety, friendship, generosity, chastity and courtesy. Each of the five virtues is tested on Gawain throughout the poem creating an emphasised importance on the shield’s representation and meaning. “Now alle þese fyue syþez, for soþe, were fetled on þis knyȝt, And vchone halched in oþer, þat non ende hade, And fyched vpon fyue poyntez, þat fayld neuer” (SGGK, 656-8). This quote tells of the pentangle’s design, how each line of the pentangles composition is endlessly linked to one another, suggesting that each virtue depends on th...
The Black Plague was brought upon Europe through the fleas that were on the bodies of rats. As soon as an infected flea bites a single human, anywhere in the world, they are infected with the deadly virus that the fleas carry. The rats with fleas would climb up into the trade boats and get off at another place spreading the disease to many places in the Middle Ages. But the rats were also affected by the fleas’ virus, the rats could survive with a few bacteria in them but eventually, they will die after a few days of also being infected like the humans. The Black Plague was out of three plagues but it was mostly of the bubonic plague which are the least toxic out of the other plague but it is still highly lethal, killing 50% to 60% of its victims, the pneumonic plague which affects the lungs, and the septicaemic plague which affects the blood. The Black plague is one of the most known plagues in history not only for killing millions of people on earth but also because of it spreading rapidly throughout the
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.
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.
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.
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle G. Labor, Lee Morgan, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. 5-6. Print.