Shape-Shifter in the Green: Performing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract

Who, namely, was weird, imperious being, qualified to challenge, test, unmask, pass sentence? The Green Knight who could tuck his head under his arm appear with it in place again, whose wife was fairest temptress in world, whose Green Chapel was a kind of eerie crypt, the cursedest kirk, as Gawain judged it, that e'er I came in!-who is he what is his name?-Heinrich Zimmer, The King Corpse (76)Sir Gawain Green Knight is a courtly romance, finest Arthurian in English, Albert C. Baugh wrote in A Literary History of England in 1948 (236). The critical reputation of poem remains unquestioned today, succeeding generations of literary critics continue to praise poem in words nearly identical to those used by Baugh over half a century ago. Gawain Green Knight is, wrote Vincent J. Scattergood five decades later, the finest Middle English Arthurian romance (419). The poem's brilliance shines through in its alliterative verse, its complex blending of Pagan Christian mythologies, its weaving together of its two plots (the Beheading Game Temptation), its masterful use of suspense.1 But there is no end of things to exclaim over, concludes Baugh, and we can only hint at enjoyment to be had from reading re-reading this fine romance (237).Given its literary reputation, its language, its complexity, Sir Gawain Green Knight is a particularly challenging source text for storytelling performance. Yet I took up challenge as if under its enchantment chose Sir Gawain Green Knight for exactly that, I have continued to perform it over many years at storytelling festivals, schools, academic conferences, International Congress on Medieval Studies.2 For me, power of poem has always been in its mythic resonances and, specifically, its enigmatic Green Knight. This essay considers poem's critical heritage different ways literary critics have interpreted mysterious character of Green Knight-that green shape-shifter-whose appearance is no less remarkable today than it was long ago Christmastime in Camelot. Additionally, I think, essay serves as an exemplum of kind of research required by oral interpretative storytellers who turn to canonical texts for performance.Joseph D. Sobol describes oral interpretative storyteller:The teller begins with a written text, whether of her own or another's devising, commits this text to memory. She then overlays paralinguistic, performative elements of facial, vocal, kinesic expression timing upon preset verbal scaffolding, whether in rehearsal process of in heat of performance. (Innervision 72)Sobol's description is very helpful for articulating artistic work of oral interpretative storyteller.3 However, its purview does not include background research this mode of performance requires. Too often my experience has been listeners those new to storytelling assume work of an oral interpretative storyteller is simply to abridge to memorize a selected text, which would be tantamount to performing a text offthe surface. Risky business, especially if storyteller is performing text for an audience of literary scholars! Research, I argue, is invaluable and, indeed, necessary for storytelling artist working with a complex literary text in order to develop a resonant, grounded performance. Research informs a myriad of artistic choices, among them (but not limited to) tone of story, attitude of teller to story's characters, individual characterizations, as well as an understanding of a story's use of symbolism. This essay, then, takes its reader behind scenes with oral interpretative storyteller to library to understand research behind a performance of a complex, multivalent masterwork. …