And The Green Knight Essay, Research Paper

In the Fourteenth Century, Feudalism and its progeny, gallantry, were in diminution due to drastic societal and economic alterations. In this visible radiation, _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ presents both a nostalgic support of the feudal hierarchies and an inexplicit unfavorable judgment of alterations, which, if left unbridled will take to its ultimate devastation. I would propose that the adult females in the narrative are the Gawain poet & # 8217 ; s primary instruments in this review and support of Feudalism. By positioning The Virgin Mary ( as the remarkable female original stand foring religious love, obeisance, celibacy, and life ) against Morgan and Bertilak & # 8217 ; s married woman ( who represent the traditional female originals of courtly love, noncompliance, lust and decease ) the Gawain poet points out the struggle between courtly love and religious love which he, and other critics of the clip, felt had drastically weakened the spiritual values behind gallantry. As such, the verse form is a warning to its Aristocratic readers that the traditional spiritual values underlying the feudal system must be upheld in order to debar devastation of their manner of life.

It is easy to read _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ as a romantic jubilation of gallantry, but Ruth Hamilton believes that & # 8220 ; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight contains a more wide-ranging, more serious unfavorable judgment of gallantry than has so far been noticed & # 8221 ; ( 113 ) . Specifically, she feels that the poet is demoing Gawain & # 8217 ; s trust on gallantry & # 8217 ; s outside signifier and substance at the disbursal of the original values of the Christian faith from which it sprang. As she shows, & # 8220 ; the first order of knights were cloistered 1s, who took vows of poorness, obeisance, and celibacy. The first duties the knights undertook, the campaigns, were for the Church & # 8221 ; ( 113 ) . The great divergency in the two came with the rise of courtly love in which the knights were led to great efforts of courage and upheaval by devotedness to a kept woman instead than God. Given the Church & # 8217 ; s misgiving of adult females and the flesh, the contradiction seems clear. Hamilton tells us there was a mass of clerical Hagiographas in the Fourteenth Century that were critical of gallantry and demo the split between gallantry and the church during that clip.

Given this misgiving of adult females by the church, the arrangement of the adult females in the narrative must be a critical medium for presenting this message. Interestingly, the adult females appear to exert great power. Bertilak & # 8217 ; s married woman is runing unassisted against Gawain in the sleeping room as the huntsman and attacker. Morgan is the provoker of the secret plan which begins the narrative, and she is strong plenty to travel into Bertilak & # 8217 ; s castle, turn him green and order him to walk and speak with a cut off caput. However, the poet ne’er intends to show a universe where adult females are powerful ; instead, these adult females constitute a metaphor for other anti-social forces and dangers outside the control of feudal system and gallantry which a medieval universe genders female because of a set of scriptural and classical theoretical accounts which set up anything insurgent as feminine.

Much of the designation of adult females with corruption is accomplished through the operation of the major medieval originals. Lady Bertilak is clearly seen in the Biblical function of enchantress. The Biblical original began with Eve and as Maureen Fries shows & # 8220 ; Eve became known as the beginning and symbol of lecherousness and the dangers of the flesh ; it was she who led Adam astray & # 8221 ; ( 27 ) . In Gawain & # 8217 ; s anti-feminist philippic, Gawain really places her in a long line of other scriptural enchantresss including Delilah and Bathsheba ( 1216-19 ) .

But Lady Bertilak is besides strongly associated the romantic original of & # 8220 ; courtly love & # 8221 ; . As such, Fries says, the Lady & # 8220 ; becomes the ambivalent mirror in which the knight pictures his ain potency for moral accomplishment or moral failure in footings of the male warrior ethos such literature was designed to laud & # 8221 ; ( 28 ) . Even before analyzing the Lady & # 8217 ; s operation in the sleeping room, the moral contradiction between the two originals is apparent and defines the quandary he will confront.

If we look now look at the alone original of the Virgin Mary and her particular relationship to Gawain, we see how the poet has structured the sleeping room scene as the conflicting demands of religious and courtly love. Mary is alone among adult females in Christianity. She is the theoretical account of female behaviour stand foring humbleness and obeisance to God in her function as the Mother of God. She is a virgin, untainted by gender, which is considered the root of all immoralities in the early Christian church. As Marina Warner says in _Alone of All Her Sex_ , & # 8220 ; The cult of Mary is inextricably interlacing with Christian thoughts about the dangers of the flesh and their particular connexion with women. & # 8221 ; She is a life giver without wickedness, the lone adult female to hold both maternity and celibacy. This seems to sum up the placement of Mary on one side stand foring religious love, celibacy, obeisance and life and Lady Bertilak on the other as the original of both courtly love and scriptural enchantress with associations of lecherousness, noncompliance and decease. Describing this construct so cardinal to Christianity, Marina Warner says & # 8220 ; To this twenty-four hours it is a specially graceful parallel & # 8230 ; a great vault thrown over the history of western attitudes to adult females, the whole mighty span lifting on Eve the enchantress on one side, and Mary the idol on the other & # 8221 ; ( 60 ) .

That Gawain is Mary & # 8217 ; s Knight is made clear as he is robed for conflict. She is represented as one of the five points of the pentacle, through the five joys of Mary, and her image is etched on the dorsum of his shield. The verse form describes the build uping scene which shows her particular relationship to him:

That his art all depended on the five pure Joys that the sanctum Queen of Heaven had of her kid. Consequently the gracious Knight had that Queen & # 8217 ; s image etched on the interior of his armoured shield, So that when he beheld her, his bosom did non neglect. ( 645-65 )

It is of import to observe that he derives his art and bravery from his particular relationship with Mary. Equally long as Gawain is confronting the dangers which grow out of his deal with the Green Knight, which does non prove his beliing truenesss in love, his religious religion is clear and undaunted and his art and bravery clasp. On his journey to look for the Green Knight he is beset by a figure of adversities and is eventually at the point of desperation. As he lies stop deading in the wood he prays to Mary happen him shelter and a topographic point to state Mass on Christmas Eve. She answers his supplications and leads him to Bertilak & # 8217 ; s palace.

When Gawain comes to Bertilak & # 8217 ; s tribunal he is thrown into a wholly different universe. Here, it is Gawain & # 8217 ; s art in courtly love that the courtiers of Bertilak & # 8217 ; s palaces are interested in instead than some effort of make bolding like that which Arthur wanted before get downing dinner. They say:

This baronial Knight will turn out what manners the mighty bring ; His converse of courtly love shall spur our analyzing ( 920-927 ) .

De Roo has argued that Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal, which is described as & # 8220 ; in its just premier & # 8221 ; ( 54 ) and Arthur as & # 8220 ; childlike & # 8221 ; ( 86 ) , represents the early yearss of gallantry, when it was still immature and guiltless, given over to jousting and soldierly feats more than love. Bertilak, as an older figure, presides over a much more sophisticated and secular tribunal and presents a more complicated moral state of affairs for Gawain. In Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal, Guinevere sits statically on a podium, silent. In Bertilak & # 8217 ; s tribunal, Bertilak & # 8217 ; s married woman is a force to be reckoned with in the sleeping room. Even in the early yearss of Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal, a degree of moral decay is suggested with their frivolous jubilation of Christmas and their reaction to the Green Knight & # 8217 ; s challenge. There is a warning implicit in the dangers confronting them, that the go oning separation of chivalric and Christian values will necessarily be destructive.

This separation becomes clear from the beginning of his visit in Bertilak & # 8217 ; s tribunal and it is demonstrated in his first meeting with the Lady. After his reaching, we see Gawain at Mass & # 8220 ; in serious temper the whole service through & # 8221 ; ( 940 ) . This serious temper is instantly forgotten with the sight of the Lady. All he wants to make is to escort her down the aisle and look up to her comeliness:

Most winsome in ways of all adult females alive, She seemed to Sir Gawain, stand outing Guinevere. To squire that splendid doll, he strode through the opportunity. ( 944-46 )

This scene contains another inexplicit warning ; adult females may look beautiful, but they can besides be the path to decease and decay. Strolling down the aisle with the Lady is an older adult female and the two are compared, & # 8216 ; For if the 1 was winsome, so withered was the other & # 8221 ; ( 951 ) . Rather than merely stand foring the vicissitudes of clip, the comparing is a moral statement about adult females and their association with sex, wickedness and decease. Marina Warner quotes several Medieval theologists and concludes & # 8220 ; the enticement of her ( Eve & # 8217 ; s ) beauty was nil but an facet of the decease bought approximately by her seduction of Adam in the garden & # 8221 ; ( 58 ) . Further, decay of the flesh is frequently a symbol of religious decay and this besides traces to Eve who & # 8220 ; cursed to bear kids instead than blessed with maternity was identified with nature, a signifier of low affair that drags adult male & # 8217 ; s soul down the religious ladder ( Warner 58 ) . The apposition of the two adult females clearly demonstrates this construct.

This moral & # 8216 ; drag & # 8217 ; becomes evident from the beginning of his association with the Lady. On Christmas forenoon, & # 8220 ; that forenoon when work forces call to mind the birth of our beloved Lord Born to decease for our fate & # 8221 ; ( 996-7 ) , alternatively of happening consolation in the significance of Christmas, Gawain and the Lady & # 8220 ; found such consolation and satisfaction seated together, in the distinct assurances of their courtly dawdling & # 8221 ; ( 1011-12 ) . When Gawain was entirely in the wood, fearing decease, he could merely believe of one thing, that Mary should take him to a topographic point to state mass on Christmas. Now he is so consumed with his & # 8216 ; luf-talk & # 8217 ; that he has forgotten the significance of the twenty-four hours.

This scene is merely a prefiguration of the dangers of courtly love ; the sleeping room scene is the existent proving land. First, the poet subtly shows how courtly love can fall outside the bounds of the male feudal hierarchy and its regulations. On the first twenty-four hours of her assault the Lady begins to set up her ain deal with Gawain & # 8211 ; a deal of courtly love & # 8211 ; through a elusive set of ratings based on his art in & # 8216 ; luf-talk & # 8217 ; . She says to him:

& # 8216 ; For were I worth the whole of adult female sort, and all the wealth in the universe were in my manus, And if bargaining I were to offer to convey myself a lord- With your fresh qualities, knight, made known to me now, Your good expressions, gracious mode and great courtesy, All of which I have heard of earlier, but here turn out true- No Godhead that is populating could be allowed to stand out you. & # 8217 ;

And Gawain answers:

& # 8216 ; Indeed, beloved lady, you did better, & # 8217 ; said the knight, & # 8216 ; But I am proud of the cherished monetary value you put on me, And solemnly as your servant say you are my crowned head. May Christ repay it you: I have become your knight. & # 8217 ;

Unwittingly, Gawain has entered into another deal, but now Gawain & # 8217 ; s deal is with a adult female instead than a adult male, and his ability to delight her with his talk is being tested instead than the other deals which test his trueness, heroism and truthfulness. The poet is puting up the different deals to inquire the inquiry, which is the most of import value of gallantry. The Lady believes courtly love is the highest value in gallantry as she says on the 2nd twenty-four hours:

Since the choicest thing in Chivalry, the main thing praised, is the loyal athletics of love, the really traditional knowledge of weaponries ( 1512-13 ) .

This points out a serious struggle ; in the game of courtly love, a adult male is forced outside of the traditional male hierarchies, placed on equal terms with a adult female, and non capable to the feudal trueness system. It is further suggested that this relationship has eclipsed other relationships within the codification of gallantry. And, unlike the other competitions, established by work forces, where the regulations are clearly defined, the Lady & # 8217 ; s game is equivocal. We can see this as the seduction progresses ; Gawain & # 8217 ; s moral codification can non stand strongly plenty in this sphere.

It seems as if this is what the Gawain poet intended to propose when he positioned the sleeping room scenes within the Hunt scenes. The Hunt scenes show an unambiguous universe of work forces and an appropriate locale for male knightly action. The work forces are outside, in vigorous, heroic, manfully chase, developing for what is truly the intent of gallantry & # 8211 ; the defence of the land and the service of the Church. The Lord is in the lead, the boldest and most active. The regulations are followed precisely. Notice how much item is spent in each runing scene depicting the regulations of carving and administering the yearss spoils. For illustration, the poet says of the first twenty-four hours & # 8217 ; s Hunt:

Those highest in rank came up with hosts of attenders, picked out what appeared to be the plumpest animals And, harmonizing to usage, had them cut unfastened with delicacy ( 1325-27 ) .

While the Hunt is traveling on Gawain is lying in bed. The poet references this in each runing scene to stress the contrast. For illustration, on the first twenty-four hours he says, & # 8220 ; Thus by the forest boundary lines the brave Godhead sported, and the good adult male Gawain, on his homosexual bed lying & # 8221 ; ( 1178-9 ) . In contrast to the Hunt scenes, Gawain & # 8217 ; s state of affairs seems excessively enjoyable, surrounding on the wickedness of luxury and stand foring a private universe outside of the traditional hierarchies, regulations and truenesss.

The first message, so, is that a knight has no concern featuring with adult females, but there is more of a warning nowadays as the competition in the sleeping room escalates. In the sleeping room, the Lady is non merely an archetype suggesting certain moral associations to the reader ; she is a existent enchantress proving his celibacy and a existent object of courtly love, proving his courtesy. As she presses him more and more sharply as each twenty-four hours passes, the struggle between his religious love and courtly love becomes evident. On the 3rd twenty-four hours she & # 8220 ; pressed him so heatedly & # 8221 ; ( 1770 ) that the struggle is made clear:

He was concerned for his courtesy, lest he be called caitiff, But more particularly for his evil predicament if he should immerse into wickedness, and dishonor the proprietor of the house faithlessly ( 1773-75 ) .

While he is able to see that his celibacy is more of import than his courtesy, he is still urgently seeking to equilibrate the two. It is his inability to do a clear and unambiguous pick between the two which leads him to accept the girdle. While Mary, stand foring his religious love and religion, saves him from losing his celibacy, as the poet says, & # 8220 ; And endanger would hold impended Had Mary non minded her knight & # 8221 ; ( 1768-9 ) , Gawain still turns about and disavows her. When the Lady straight asks him if he has another love, Gawain replies, & # 8221 ; & # 8216 ; I owe my curse to none, nor wish to yet a piece & # 8217 ; & # 8221 ; ( 1790-1 ) . His devotedness has been lost in his bargaining.

This loss of devotedness and religion is his undoing for it was his religion in Mary, through the contemplation of her five joys and her symbol on the dorsum of her shield, which gave him his art and bravery. With a weakening of his religion in her, which we can read as a weakening of his religious religion every bit good, he is prey to the Lady & # 8217 ; s offer of another item to protect him, the girdle. In this manner he becomes guilty of the wickedness of cowardliness, as Gawain himself names it when his weaknesss are revealed to him by the Green Knight. We besides see that in his bargaining with the Lady and her rating of him, he has come to value himself excessively extremely, and in this manner commits the wickedness of covetousness.

His disclaimer of the Virgin Mary is shown when he trades one symbol for another, the pentacle for the girdle. He gives up the symbol associated with the Virgin Mary and alternatively embraces the girdle which is associated with the Lady. Hamilton believes that the poet constructed the pentacle as a metaphor for the confusion of gallantry and faith since & # 8220 ; all three facets & # 8211 ; Gawain, faith and degree Celsius

hivalry – are tantamount, all intertwined and mutualist, none more of import the other. Gawain has lost his sense of proportion, his perceptual experience of the proper hierarchy of values” ( 114 ) . We have seen that all these facets do non back up each other, that in fact, his courtesy and his continency have been at war, the failings of the pentacle has become evident and he is forced to look for another symbol.

There is another possible significance in the credence of the girdle as a replacement for the pentacle, his trading of a Marian symbol for a secular symbol. Richard Green points out that during the clip the poet was composing, there was a well-known apocryphal narrative in which Mary gives Doubting Thomas her girdle, the Sacred Cintola, as a mark of his ultimate religion and truthfulness. Green points out the sarcasm which this suggests & # 8220 ; from a comparing of the two build uping scenes ( the prominent shield which serves to set up Gawain as Mary & # 8217 ; s Knight in the first scene being replaced in the 2nd by a secular farce of the Sacra Cintola, its green coloring material transporting the dry deduction of disloyalty in love ) & # 8221 ; ( 7 ) . It supports the thought that he has been disloyal to Mary in accepting the & # 8216 ; false girdle. & # 8217 ; We subsequently see the girdle labeled as a mark of his & # 8216 ; untrawthe, & # 8217 ; his falseness.

If this narrative can be applied here, there are farther sarcasms to be gleaned. The pentacle is an & # 8220 ; endless knot & # 8217 ; and as such it is impenetrable. Many critics have pointed out that the girdle is non eternal, and is in fact broken and needs to be tied and unfastened. Marina Warner shows how the Virgin became a symbol of integrity, unbroken because of her virginity. In Medieval writings the Virgin Mary is described as & # 8220 ; a closed gate, & # 8221 ; a & # 8220 ; jumping shut-up, & # 8221 ; a & # 8220 ; fountain sealed & # 8221 ; ( Warner ) . Warner, in discoursing the Sacra Cintola, refers to the fabulous ancestors of the girdle and says & # 8220 ; the gender of the symbol derives from its teasing ambivalency: loosed, the girdle gives promise ; fastened, it denies & # 8221 ; ( 279 ) . Seen in this visible radiation, Gawain is merchandising the pentacle and the Virgin Mary, both symbols that deny and hence protect, with a symbol which can be loosed and hence makes Gawain weak and quarry to other wickednesss beyond the protection of his celibacy.

This thought parallels St. Augustine & # 8217 ; s theories of sexual desire. Warner defines sexual desire as & # 8221 ; & # 8216 ; the inclination to transgress, & # 8217 ; a weakening of the will that makes opposition hard, that is the lasting bequest of the Fall, the portion of original wickedness non remitted in baptism. It is related to want and the immoralities of the flesh. St. Augustine felt that it was non the act of intercourse that was iniquitous but the passion necessary to execute it. It is the bodily passions that are mistrusted in Medieval Catholicism, for they weaken ground and will. This is precisely what happened to Gawain, his passion was aroused by his & # 8216 ; luf-talk & # 8217 ; with the Lady, weakening his will and opening him up to other wickednesss which are possibly non every bit serious as a loss of celibacy but are destructive to the workings of the feudal system.

The poet demonstrates that his actions weaken the feudal system by demoing that the effect of his credence of the girdle is that he must so hide it from his host and in the procedure interrupt his understanding with Bertilak. While he has upheld his deal with the Lady, and performed with immaculate courtesy in the game of courtly love, he has had to interrupt his word and disobey the Lord to make it. Again we see the symbolism of the originals at work. Mary, in her function of Mother of God, is a symbol of obeisance. Eve, in her function in the Fall, represents noncompliance. He has chosen noncompliance over obeisance. This is where the Gawain poet makes his strongest point ; the game of courtly love will finally interrupt the male societal bonds which hold feudal system together. Merely the traditional Christian hierarchies, from which gallantry was born, can supply an equal support. Christian love and Courtly love are adversaries.

This is reinforced by the concluding exchange between Gawain and the Green Knight where the poet shows the manner he feels feudal system should work & # 8211 ; by ostracizing courtly love and adult females from the codification of gallantry. Sheila Fisher shows how the power the adult females hold is reappropriated by the work forces in order to back up the male societal order. First we see that the result of the decapitation game, and hence Gawain & # 8217 ; s life, rests on his public presentation of the & # 8216 ; exchange of profitss & # 8217 ; understanding, that is to state, on his fidelity to Lord Bertilak. Second, after the Green Knight reveals the significance of the trial, he states that the Lady acted at his behest and thereby appropriates the power she seemed to keep. Subsequently in the scene, he reveals that Morgan sent him to Arthur & # 8217 ; s palace in the pretense of the Green Knight ; nevertheless, by the clip he reveals this, he has already appropriated the program for his ain intents. It is besides possible that the bartering game, which becomes the footing for the judgement, is his ain innovation since he does non impute this to Morgan & # 8217 ; s bureau. This enables him to so turn her program, which was hatched for destructive intents, to a baronial and promoting trial which serves the high moral intent of learning Gawain a lesson & # 8211 ; keep true to the ideals of the Christian philosophy as a support for the knightly codification.

Gawain, in his confession and absolution, goes through a similar shifting of power and incrimination. When the Green Knight foremost reveals Gawain & # 8217 ; s failure of & # 8220 ; cowardliness and covetousness & # 8221 ; ( 2374 ) , Gawain shows deep shame and self abnegation ( 2369-75 ) . However, after he has been absolved by the Green Knight, he launches into a philippic about adult females, all scriptural enchantresss, in which he becomes one in a long line of male victims inadvertently duped by adult females ( 2413-28 ) . In this manner he displaces the incrimination and is able to recover his power within the narrative by returning non as a failure but as a to the full reinstated knight of award.

This philippic against adult females seems to hold another motive. Hamilton points out that & # 8220 ; When Gawain realizes that he can non accomplish flawlessness through gallantry, his immediate reaction is to distribute with courtesy, that knightly value of which he is the idol in this verse form & # 8221 ; ( 115 ) . Now he is much more concerned about holding been caught in the wickednesss of cowardliness and covetousness than whether he is polite.. And non merely does he distribute with courtesy but he is finished with adult females every bit good. He refuses to return to the palace to do peace with Bertilak & # 8217 ; s married woman and Morgan, even though Morgan is Arthur & # 8217 ; s half sister. They are efficaciously banished. All the external menaces they represent, and the internal struggle they generated, are eliminated. Power is back in the custodies of the appropriate authorization, and Gawain & # 8217 ; s truenesss are redefined.

This shifting of incrimination and power is demonstrated through the way the girdle takes as a symbol and who it is associated with ( Fisher 89-95 ) . First, it is offered by the lady as a love item made with her ain manus. It is a adult female & # 8217 ; s garment, a symbol of female gender. Then, it becomes a nominal endowed with the thaumaturgy to protect his life, still a female garment, but worn by a adult male. When the confession and absolution scene occur, it becomes a ownership of the Green Knight. He so redefines it as a item & # 8220 ; of the great escapade at the Green chapel & # 8221 ; ( 2399 ) . Gawain takes it up as a symbol of his shame. When it returns to Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal, all the work forces of the Round Table decide to have on it, and it becomes a symbol of award and a standard portion of the male outfit.

This is non the terminal of the message. While Gawain has clearly learned the lesson and wears the girdle now as a symbol of his shame, the other Knight of Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal have non ; they laugh at Gawain & # 8217 ; s narrative and proudly take the girdle as a symbol of award. Guinevere and Morgan will return, and since the knights have non learned their lesson about the dangers of courtly love, they will be destroyed. This narrative becomes a message, non for Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal, but for the Aristocratic readership of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ , for they know what will go on to Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal as a consequence of non minding this message. By the clip Gawain was written, the death of Camelot was a common portion of the traditional knowledge.

I believe that this is suggested by the bookend references to Troy, for I learned in _Alone of All Her Sex_ , that the Virgin & # 8217 ; s girdle has & # 8220 ; direct fabulous ancestors in the West & # 8221 ; ( 279 ) . At the judgement of Paris, Aphrodite gives Paris her girdle and promises him his choice of the most beautiful adult female. He, in bend, gives her the apple of strife. All of the work forces of the unit of ammunition tabular array have taken the girdle, and despite its redefinition as a male item, the associations with female gender remain. In clip, Arthur & # 8217 ; s tribunal will confront the destiny of Troy, destroyed by the strife between work forces brought approximately by the desire to possess the most beautiful adult female. The message is clear. For the bonds between work forces to stay strong, trafficking with adult females, in the tradition of courtly love, must be banished.

It seems as if much of what we have read this semester shows a universe seeking to cope with monolithic societal alteration. The books present a position which nostalgically supports a deceasing societal construction, that of the feudal economic system Unwittingly, these books have besides shown how the feudal system, and the spiritual philosophies which support it, no longer suit comfortably with a more complicated universe where the standard footing for exchange and truenesss is being undermined. From our position, _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ , has the unwilled consequence of indicating out the moral complexnesss confronting Fourteenth Century feudal system.

The struggle Sir Gawain confronts becomes a metaphor for other jobs confronting the Fourteenth Century nobility. Gawain & # 8217 ; s bargaining with Bertilak & # 8217 ; s married woman, a deal outside of the traditional blue exchange system, raises the inquiry of who one should dicker with, if the acceptable locales for dickering & # 8211 ; among Aristocratic work forces & # 8211 ; is no longer the lone footing for exchange. Bertilak & # 8217 ; s castigation and reinstatement of Gawain in the societal order, at the terminal of the decapitation game, makes us recognize that the traditional truenesss within the hierarchies were non longer enforceable. Aristocratic work forces could non merely reappropriate the power for their ain intents as Bertilak did in _Sir Gawain_ , for by the Fourteenth Century, power was already diffused by the rise of the mercantile category, the growing of the metropoliss and the displacement in peasant labour. Finally, we know that the traditional Christian philosophy, which the Gawain poet suggests as the reply, is itself being tested by the new societal construction which did non turn out of it, as feudal system did, and so does non suit so neatly. This perspective makes _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ a nostalgic narrative where faith held all the replies and the old system held all the power.

Bibliography

De Roo, Harvey. & # 8220 ; Undressing Lady Bertilak: Guilt and Denial in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; The Chaucer Review 27 ( 1993 ) : 305-24.

Fisher, Sheila. & # 8220 ; Taken Men and Token Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essaies in Feminist Contextual Criticism.. Ed. Sheila Fisher and Janet E. Halley. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 71-105.

French friess, Maureen. & # 8220 ; The Characterization of Women in the Alliterative Tradition. & # 8221 ; The Alliterative Tradition in the Fourteenth Century Ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1981. 25-45.

Green, Richard. & # 8220 ; Sir Gawain and the Sacra Cintola. & # 8221 ; English Surveies in Canada 11 ( 1985 ) : 1-11.

Gold, Penny Schine. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Hamilton, Ruth. & # 8220 ; Chivalry as Sin in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; University of Dayton Review 18 ( 1987 ) : 113-17.

Kamps, Ivo. & # 8220 ; Magic, Women, and Incest: The Real Challenges in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1 ( 1989 ) : 313-36.

Morgan, Gerald. & # 8220 ; The Action of the Hunting and Bedroom Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; Medium Aevum 56 ( 1987 ) : 200-16.

Warner, Marina. Alone of all Her Sexual activity: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. , 1976.

The Role of Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Annotated Bibliography

Lili Arkin

De Roo, Harvey. & # 8220 ; Undressing Lady Bertilak: Guilt and Denial in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; The Chaucer Review 27 ( 1993 ) : 305-24.

De Roo argues that Gawain was basking his & # 8216 ; luf-talk & # 8217 ; with Bertilak & # 8217 ; s married woman so much that it makes him excessively attached to life. He draws a connexion between the sexual enticement in the sleeping room scenes and the credence of the girdle.

Fisher, Sheila. & # 8220 ; Taken Men and Token Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essaies in Feminist Contextual Criticism. Ed. Sheila Fisher and Janet E. Halley. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 71-105.

Fisher presents a women’s rightist position which demonstrates that Morgan, and the other adult females in the narrative, are intentionally marginalized because they represent an external menace the male dominated societal order of gallantry.

French friess, Maureen. & # 8220 ; The Characterization of Women in the Alliterative Tradition. & # 8221 ; The Alliterative Tradition in the Fourteenth Century. Ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1981. 25-45.

French friess shows that the word picture of adult females in the Alliterative Tradition is non confined to that of the romantic heroine but presents a assortment of female originals and richly drawn word pictures.

Green, Richard. & # 8220 ; Sir Gawain and the Sacra Cintola. & # 8221 ; English Surveies in Canada 11 ( 1985 ) : 1-11.

Green suggests that the poet & # 8217 ; s usage of a girdle as a symbol may be related to the apocryphal narrative of the Virgin Mary & # 8217 ; s gift of the girdle to Doubting Thomas at the Assumption. He inside informations the sarcasms it suggest in the narrative.

Gold, Penny Schine. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

In Chapter Three, Gold looks at the relationship of the Virgin Mary to other adult females in Medieval spiritual iconography and concludes that the Virgin Mary & # 8217 ; s image is alone among adult females.

Hamilton, Ruth. & # 8220 ; Chivalry as Sin in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; University of Dayton Review 18 ( 1987 ) : 113-17.

This article suggests that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight presents a wide review of facets of gallantry such as Gawain & # 8217 ; s attending to organize over substance and his confusion between gallantry and faith.

Kamps, Ivo. & # 8220 ; Magic, Women, and Incest: The Real Challenges in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1 ( 1989 ) : 313-36.

Kamps examines some of the riotous influences and anxiousnesss confronting Arthur & # 8217 ; s Camelot & # 8211 ; specifically adult females, thaumaturgy, criminal conversation, and incest & # 8211 ; with Morgan stand foring a figure of speech for all the ailments.

Morgan, Gerald. & # 8220 ; The Action of the Hunting and Bedroom Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. & # 8221 ; Medium Aevum 56 ( 1987 ) : 200-16.

Morgan argues that a moral battle is suggested by the apposition of the Hunt scenes and the sleeping room scenes, with the Lady in the function of the huntsman and Gawain as the hunted.

Warner, Marina. Alone of all Her Sexual activity: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. , 1976.

Warner & # 8217 ; s book inside informations the particular importance of the Virgin Mary throughout Christianity and explores her spiritual and secular significance. She discusses such things as the Church & # 8217 ; s attitude toward virginity, the function theoretical account of the Virgin sufferer, the Virgin & # 8217 ; s relics, and her function as an mediator with God.

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