There are several types of transformation that take place in supernatural ballads. With respect to the selected ballads, I consider the transformation by a witch1 that casts spell on humans and turns them into animals2 the most significant one. This motif often comes along with the reception of a magic object.3 Finally, the villains are sometimes punished by transformation themselves, whereas the upright, innocent characters are usually disenchanted4 and released from the power of the witch again. There are several ways in which a bewitched person can be transformed back into their human shape.5 One common motif is the prince who falls in love with the enchanted woman6 and rescues her, for instance through kisses7 or means of submission.8 However, …show more content…
31, “The Marriage of Sir Gawain.” At first sight, it seems to tell the story of the putative hero King Arthur and therefore, apparently provides the reader with a usual heroic tale; this, however, turns out to be a fallacy. In fact, the linchpin of the story is the enchanted maid. This plot line technically begins before the ballad actually starts, for the basis for the poem is established by the motif of transformation by a witch; when looking at the entire ballad, it becomes clear that both the maid and her brother's fate met their terrible fates on account of a witch: “[m]y father […] marryed a younge lady / That brought me to this woe. / Shee witched me, being a faire young lady / To the greene forrest to dwell, / And there I must walke in womans liknesse, / Most like a feend of hell. / She witched by brother” (“Sir Gawain” ll. 181-189). The core element of the ballad is obviously the common motif of the wicked stepmother who strives to punish or even get rid of her husband's children due to greed, negative feelings and jealousy towards them (cf. Francus 129). In this case, she does so by enchanting them: she transforms her stepdaughter into an ugly woman and casts a spell on her stepson which forces him to challenge men who cross his way to a duel or to solve his riddle (cf. Child 289): “'[a]nd bring me word what thing it is / That a woman [will] most desire; / This shalbe thy ransome, Arthur,' he sayes, / 'For Ile haue noe other hier.'” (“Sir Gawain” ll. 13-16). The appearance of an evil stepmother possibly represents the threat of being at the mercy of the father's new wife who the children must be subordinate to. This matches the concepts in traditional fairy tales, in which we can find several cases of witches or evil stepmothers: in Cinderella, the stepmother punishes her stepdaughter by treating her as a servant and giving her tasks to perform instead of going to the royal ball
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a fourteenth-century tale written by an anonymous poet, chronicles how Sir Gawain of King Arthur’s Round Table finds his virtue compromised. A noble and truthful knight, Gawain accepts the Green Knight’s challenge at Arthur’s New Years feast. On his way to the Green Chapel, Gawain takes shelter from the cold winter at Lord Bercilak’s castle. The lord makes an agreement with Gawain to exchange what they have at the end of the day. During the three days that the lord is out hunting, his wife attempts to seduce Gawain.
When the Green Knight arrives at Camelot, he challenges Arthur’s court, mocking the knights for being afraid of mere words, and suggesting that words and appearances hold too much power with them. Although the Green Knight basically tricks Gawain, by not telling him about his supernatural capabilities before asking him to agree to his terms, Gawain refuses to withdraw of their agreement. He stands by his commitments, even though it means putting his own life in jeopardy. The poem habitually restates Sir Gawain’s deep fears and apprehensions, but Gawain desires to maintain his own individual integrity at all costs which allows him to master his fears in his quest to seek the Green Chapel. After Gawain arrives at Bertilak’s castle, it is quite obvious that h...
The poem’s intricately balanced structure challenges the reader to seek out a resolution coherent with his or her own ethics. An admirable knight of King Arthur's renowned court, Sir Gawain is directed by a complex set of ethos, a collaboration of principles symbolized by the mystical pentangle. A five-pointed star composed of five interlocking lines; the figure represents a multitude of guiding tenets, representing both religious and knightly ideals. One can recognize that “the pentangle cognizance is explicated by the poet to signal Gawain’s complete Christian perfection, and for the reader to be aware of contemporary concerns about magical protective practices, hinting at human frailty” (Hardman 251).
shall fare forth to find you, so far as I may, and this I say
how he could fight with giants and was afraid at the first sight of the
Morgan, Gerald. "Medieval misogyny and Gawain's outburst against women in 'Sir Gawain and the green Knight'." The Modern Language Review 97.2 (2002): 265+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – A Test of Chivalry Essay with Outline: Loyalty, courage, honor, purity, and courtesy are all attributes of a knight that displays chivalry. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is truly a story of the test of these attributes. In order to have a true test of these attributes, there must first be a knight worthy of being tested, meaning that the knight must possess chivalric attributes to begin with. Sir Gawain is admittedly not the best knight around. He says "I am the weakest, well I know, and of wit feeblest; / and the loss of my life [will] be the least of any" (Sir Gawain, l. 354-355).
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by J.R.R. Tolkien, Gawain, a knight of the round table, expresses love and respect to aid his journey. These forms of love, from the beginning to the end, play key roles in demonstrating and maintaining the dignity of his knighthood. The manifestation of Gawain’s love forms a number of relationships over the course of the poem. Accordingly, these relationships test his true vow of chivalry and sustain his credibility as a true knight of the round table.
The Character of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell
Gawain's travels in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight suggest a world in which home--i.e., Camelot--is "normal," while away--the opposing castle of Hautdesert where Gawain perforce spends his Christmas vacation--is "other," characterized by unfamiliarity, dislocation, perversity. And in fact the atmosphere at Hautdesert appears somewhat peculiar, with various challenges to "normal" sexual identity, and with permutations of physical intimacy, or at least the suggestion of such intimacy, that are, to say the least, surprising. The typical journey of medieval romance juxtaposes a "real" world where things and people behave according to expectation with a "magical" world in which the usual rules are suspended. According to this paradigm, we might expect that this poem would place Hautdesert outside the bounds of tradition, separated by its difference from the expectations that govern Camelot and the remainder of the Arthurian world.
Even though “King Uther die[s] himself…/ that same night…/ Arthur [is] born” (Tennyson 10). Most children are scared of the dark, but in the darkness of a man dying, a child is born which is not darkness, but a life that is full of light. That child, King Arthur, shines his light upon his kingdom and makes his people, even the children, no longer scared of the dark. Elaine, a beautiful lily maid of Astolat rises and falls all in “Lancelot and Elaine”. Elaine, with her pure innocence, lay “High on her chamber up a tower to the east…/ Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray / Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam” (Tennyson 152). Elaine is innocent and full of light. She lets the light in to feel the warmth of it shining upon her face. She never knows what evil is until she falls in love with a man who does not love her back. Her innocence causes her death, because the light inside of her does not know how to handle the
dimension. To some, this poem may seem romantic; to others it may seem chivalric, to me the story seems to be more humorous than anything. The story seems comical throughout the poem, such as when Gawain comes back from the Green Knight's castle and he tells the story of his voyage. To Gawain this is very serious and important, but his fellow knights laugh at him when they hear the story. This part of the poem also has a satirical dimension that some people fail to see. Gawain had to go the Green Kni...
Marie De France’s Lanval is a remarkable short narrative that engages the reader into a world filled with unrealistic elements, but enhances on the true meaning of romance, chivalry and nature during the years that King Arthur reigned. “Sir Gawain and The Green Knight” unfortunately does not have an author that can be recognized but this epic poem demonstrates the ghastly adventure of a knight who decides to defend the honor of young King Arthur against a supernatural being in this malicious game of cat and mouse. Both of these pieces of literature have enchanting characteristics that define them as a masterpiece of their era and that’s why they both are easily compared and contrasted. In addition, both Lanval and “Sir Gawain and The Green Knight” can be classified as similar through their themes, style and plots, although they are different through their language and diction. Even though both of these literatures can be viewed as similar as well as contrasting, in the end, each of these tales have illuminated the realm of fantasy throughout the court of King Arthur.
...rtesy toward females are all tested in the poem. Sir Gawain who is supposed to embody these principles is tested by the Green knight and the lady and he fails to uphold the chivalric code. The failure leaves Gawain scarred for life but it also reflects a change in attitude towards capital violence and the role that it should play in the knights’ life. Gawain makes clear that there is a limit to how loyal and strict a knight can be when he is following the chivalric code and that the demands of the code are so immense that eventually a knight will fail to uphold the code. But this failure to uphold the code and not adhering to capital violence does not show cowardice and is in reality just human mistakes that are expected and are justified
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.