Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
My hiatus has been far, far too long. I started to think about doing my orals in the spring and the GRE lit exam in the fall. But, I've decided that I should probably use the summer to study for the orals and, thus, take the lit exam in the spring. Anyway, here is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. My notes are slim-- I just read this for about the fifth time in my Medieval Sexualities class.
After talking about this test with one of my dearly loved professors from undergrad, I've realized that I need to breeze through the medieval/renaissance stuff and really start tackling, well, everything else. So, medieval should be done this week.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1375-1400)
§ Dialect indicates that it is from a corner of the northwest midlands.
§ Unknown author thought to be the same author of the poems Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness. Sometimes referred to as the “Pearl poet.”
§ Belongs to the so-called alliterative revival. Other examples include Piers Plowman, Layamon’s Brut, and The Alliterative Morte Darthur.
§ Narrator pretends that this is an oral poem and asks the audience to “listen.”
§ “Truth” not only means a fact, idea, or belief that is held “true,” but there is also another meaning conveyed by the old-fashioned variant “troth”- faith pledged by one’s word and owed to a lord, a spouse, or anyone else who puts someone else under an obligation.
§ First and last stanzas reference the “Brutus books,” which trace the foundation of Britain back to the destruction of Troy.
§ Each stanza closes with five short lines rhyming a b a b a. The first of these lines contains two (rarely three) syllables and is called the “bob” and the four three-stress lines are called the wheel.
After talking about this test with one of my dearly loved professors from undergrad, I've realized that I need to breeze through the medieval/renaissance stuff and really start tackling, well, everything else. So, medieval should be done this week.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1375-1400)
§ Dialect indicates that it is from a corner of the northwest midlands.
§ Unknown author thought to be the same author of the poems Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness. Sometimes referred to as the “Pearl poet.”
§ Belongs to the so-called alliterative revival. Other examples include Piers Plowman, Layamon’s Brut, and The Alliterative Morte Darthur.
§ Narrator pretends that this is an oral poem and asks the audience to “listen.”
§ “Truth” not only means a fact, idea, or belief that is held “true,” but there is also another meaning conveyed by the old-fashioned variant “troth”- faith pledged by one’s word and owed to a lord, a spouse, or anyone else who puts someone else under an obligation.
§ First and last stanzas reference the “Brutus books,” which trace the foundation of Britain back to the destruction of Troy.
§ Each stanza closes with five short lines rhyming a b a b a. The first of these lines contains two (rarely three) syllables and is called the “bob” and the four three-stress lines are called the wheel.