The Royal Truth
The poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight was written anonymously around 1375 for the royal court in London. This work is a combination of comedy and satire. The poem also has two plots: "the beheading contest, in which two parties agree to an exchange of blows with a sword or ax, and the temptation, an attempted seduction of the hero by a lady" (Norton, 200). This essay will discuss one description of the setting of the poem, the characters' behavior, and how this courtly society has deteriorated from the ideal.
The poem begins with the burning of the city, Troy, and the flight of Aeneas. The great-grandson of Aeneas, Felix Brutus, is also the founder of Britain, and he comes to rebuild the city in Britian. The poem continues to describe how the city is built and says that King Arthur becomes the successor of the throne. The author makes the readers understand that the action is taking place during the winter because he mentions that the king, who is the handsomest of all his guests, is having a Christmas party at Camelot. The text states:
...he is the comeliest king, that that court holds,
For all this fair folk in their first age were still.
Happiest of mortal kind, King noblest fame of will;
You would now go far to find So hardy a host on hill (203).
The author is also very graphic. For example, the author describes the beheading of the Green Knight this way: "...the head was hewn off and fell to the floor; ...The blood gushed from the body, bright on the green..." (Norton, 211).
The passage from lines 60 to 129 of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight describes how the king and his guests celebrate New Year's Day. Before the king enters the room, the food is served to the guests. When the king comes in, everyone stops and the "Clerics and all the court acclaimed the glad season, Cried Noel anew, good news to men" (Norton, 203), which means that the guests exchange greetings with each other. Then men and women hand out gifts, but at the same time they play a kissing game. The entertainment continues until the food is served.
In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, the unknown author explains his characters' personalities and their appearance. He says that Queen Guenevere is a perfect person, who has no faults.
Bowlby’s theory is good because in his research is clear and by reading up on his theory I have realized that is work influences every day practice. But researched showed that a child’s first attachment is usually formed with the mother. Although this idea was very influential it has also been taken further as Bowlby with Robertson found that any “disruption of attachments can be minimized by responsive substitute care”. This means that pre-school care settings need to consider this when recruiting staff. It is the quality and low turnover of staff which is important. An alternative view to Bowlby was from Schaffer and Emerson (1964) who found in their study that babies can manage multiple
Barron, W.R.J., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.. New York: Manchester University Press, 1974.
In the final scenes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain’s encounter with Sir Bertilak allows Gawain to perceive his own flaws, manifested in his acceptance of the Green Girdle. The court’s reaction to his personal guilt highlights the disconnect between him and the other knights of the Round Table. Gawain’s behavior throughout the poem has been most noteworthy; his understanding of his sin, one that many of us would dismiss since it was propelled by his love of life, enhances his stature as a paragon of chivalry.
...Gawain’s time in the wilderness, living nature, and his acceptance of the lady’s offering of the green girdle teach him that though he may be the most chivalrous knight in the land, he is nevertheless human and capable of error.
Individuals 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.
In Gordon M. Shedd’s “Knight in Tarnished Armour: The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, he argues that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is truly about the strength and weaknesses of human nature. One particularly interesting part of his argument asserts that Gawain’s humanity broke medieval romance tradition.
Attachment theory focuses on the bond between a caregiver and a child and how these fragile bonds, if not attended to properly have psychological and social effects on the child’s future. The attachment process itself responds to the developing identity of the child, which is very dependent on the sensitivity and guidance of the caregiver. John Bowlby takes attachment theory in a more biological/ evolutionary perspective, in which he views these formations of bonds as a survival mechanism in which the infant ensures its survival by attaching themselves to an adult (caregiver) who can meet their needs. This take on the attachment theory suggests that parents and infants may be biologically programmed to form an attachment and that every interaction and behavior thereafter facilitates the creation of this bond (Ashford 2013, 266). On a bio-social level children look for this attachment because they are biologically wired to be related to others and be social creatures. Regardless if the attachment theory is taken through a biological,
In the anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the character of Sir Gawain is portrayed as the imperfect hero. His flaws create interest and intrigue. Such qualities of imperfection cannot be found in the symbol of the pentangle, which he displays on his shield. This contrast between character and symbol is exposed a number of times throughout the poem allowing human qualities to emerge from Gawain’s knightly portrayal. The expectations the pentangle presents proves too much for Gawain as he falls victim to black magic, strays from God, is seduced by an adulterous woman, and ultimately breaks the chivalric code by lying to the Green Knight.
In this essay I will talk about the origins of Attachment Theory John Bowlby (1958, 1960) and a discussion of the ‘Strange Situation’ (Ainsworth et al., 1978). I will consider the ethics of the study, the social- cultural perspectives on the work and I will analyse how it has influenced policy decisions and practice within the Early Years Education Sector. John Bowlby formulated the basic tenets of Attachment theory. The background to his theory is based on his work he had undertaken after he graduated from University in 1928 he went on to volunteer in a school for maladjusted children, later starting a career as a child psychiatrist (Senn, 1977). The basis of his attachment theory was that the infant or child suffered if he did not have “…a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” (Bowlby, 1951, p. 13). In this period - post war Britain, there had been a shift in women’s roles before they had taken on many male jobs due to absence of men because of the war. However after the war, nurseries were closed and women were back at home as primary carers. This support Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation and other physiological ideas which supported that children would be negatively affected without the full time presence of the mother.
Finally, which genre I prefer and why. I prefer the teleplay version because it was uncomplicated and easier to understand what was happening. It also gave a better visual to what Maple Street was like. I felt that the teleplay version had more clarity to the occurring situations. In my opinion in the short story the author just tried too hard, the teleplay was more simplistic and easier to follow and by far easier to understand.
Chivalry was a set of codes and values that the knights would follow to show loyalty to their king, respect to their lady, and humbleness to the poor. Next, courtly love was more of a tradition that was beheld usually by a knight and a lady such as Lady Bertilak, they would engage in a relationship and it would be kept a secret. The two have conflicts with each other because while Sir Gawain was courting Lady Bertilak’s he was to do as commanded but also was to not betray the loyalty of King Bertilak who was his host. Furthermore, while Sir Gawain was receiving kisses he also had a deal with his Host, anything he received in his castle would be given to King Bertilak and in exchange, he would receive what the king killed during his hunt. Throughout the first and second time that the king left and came back from hunting Sir Gawain gave him the kisses he received but on the third he failed to give him what he received since Lady Bertilak had given him a green griddle and told him to take it as well as to not to tell her husband about it. Sir Gawain was not to say a word about the gift but in receiving this gift and doing what she commands he breaks the deal between his host and he fails to be
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fit in with the concept of a romance; it has all the elements that would make one consider the text as so. The tale holds adventure, magic, a quest and an unexpected reality check that even those who are considered “perfect” are also just humans. The author used this story as a way of revealing faults in some of the aspects of knighthood through the use of intertwining chivalric duty with natural human acts; thus showing to be perfectly chivalrous would be inhuman.
John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, he describes attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (Bowlby, 1969, p.194), he believed that the earliest bonds that were formed between child and caregiver has a huge impact that continues throughout the infants life. Attachment is said to help keep the infant close to their mother, so it improves the child’s chance of survival.
Bowlby was born in London to a middle class family, where he was the fourth child of six siblings. He was raised by nannies and attended boarding school since the age of seven, which is a huge reason why he was sympathetic to studying early maternal emotional bonds. Later in life he attended Trinity College where he majored in psychology and he also took an interest in teaching delinquent children. Even later in his life he would graduate med school and earn the title of psychoanalyst. In Word War II he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and married in 1938 to a woman named Ursula Lognstaff which he had four kids with. At the end of the war he was the director of the Tovistock Clinica staying until retirement. In 1950 he carried out a major experiment regarding early emotional bonds between mothers and their children for the World Health Organization. He died when he was eighty-three. He famously said “Attachment behavior is held to characterize humans from the cradle to the grave”.
In the romances of the Middle Ages, and in most of today’s genres, sexuality is never explicitly illustrated. To avoid graphic images, authors have used flowery language or intense innuendo to portray sexuality. Just like today’s readers, audiences from the Middle Ages wanted ‘the guy to get the girl’. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a satire for the aristocrats of the Middle Ages; when audiences expect romantic and sexual interactions between the Lord and the Lady, the author does not deliver. Sexuality is shaken up and put into different, unexpected places in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. For example, the anticipated relationship between a man and a woman appears not in the encounters between the Lady and Gawain, but in the Lord’s