Sir Gawayne Research Articles

Christina Rossetti and Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight

This essay reevaluates Christina Rossetti’s narrative poem “The Prince’s Progress” (1865) as a key text in the history of Victorian medievalism by identifying the medieval poem Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight: An Alliterative Romance-Poem (republished by the Early English Text Society in 1864) as a major source. While Victorian editors presented Sir Gawayne to the public as a heroic celebration of the chivalric knight, Rossetti aligns herself with the morally and symbolically complex vision of the Gawayne poet. In “The Prince’s Progress,” Rossetti reconceptualizes the medievalist quest epic as a narrative of spiritual discernment and a warning against moral thoughtlessness for the Victorian age.

Border States: Parody, Sovereignty, and Hybrid Identity in The Carl of Carlisle

Border States: Parody, Sovereignty, and Hybrid Identity in The Carl of Carlisle Sean Pollack (bio) The Carl of Carlisle presents complex problems of identity and sovereignty embedded in its parodic form. The romance can be seen as a border text and as such it explores hybrid national, social, and literary forms. (SP) A commonplace of the standard critical narrative about The Carl of Carlisle is that it has received little scholarly attention, but it has been receiving a steady stream of little attention for the more than fifty years since the publication of Auvo Kurvinen’s parallel edition. Certainly it does not attract the same level of research and critical energy as its analogue Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.1 Recently, however, more scholars and readers are looking to The Carl of Carlisle as part of the Northern Gawain Group, a late medieval Arthurian collection of texts with recognized affinities, including such works as The Wedding of Gawain and Dame Ragnell, The Turk and Gawain, and The Awntrs of Arthur. This popular tradition is roughly concurrent with Malory’s more courtly translations (mid- to late-1400s). The division between ‘popular’ and ‘courtly’ romance is less bright than these oppositional terms suggest, as there are few romances that strictly fit the required criteria for either category. These apparently hybrid romances are predominantly Northern and Midlands, and ‘the locality in which the action takes place is almost invariably the area around Carlisle and the Inglewood forest, with which [Gawain] seems to have been traditionally associated.’2 The Carl of Carlisle fits this description in its setting, its themes, and narrative elements. It is in many ways an exemplary popular romance, but still challenges many longstanding assumptions about romances and their intended audiences. The Carl of Carlisle is that rare text with exemplars in more than one version across centuries: one a tail rhyme romance (designated as A), the other an early modern ballad (designated B).3 The A text is found in MS Brogynton II (formerly Porkington 10) ff. 12–26 and is commonly dated to circa 1400. The B text is found in the Percy Folio MS (BM Addit. 27 879). The B text was first published by Frederic Madden in his collection Sir Gawayne (1839).4 The date for the B text is usually given as ca. 1650 according to linguistic evidence. The story changes little, showing a remarkable continuity across more than [End Page 10] 200 years.5 T. Brandsen remarked in 1997 that the B version is ‘little more than a fragment’ while the A version is ‘an integrated whole.’6 The B text, it must be noted, is considerably more than a fragment, although both texts are held to be defective derivatives of a common exemplar. Carl’s A and B versions deserve a complete comparative thematic, historical and literary study that is beyond the scope of this article, but I do wish to suggest that both texts offer evidence of the preoccupation of their common source: regional, linguistic, and social borderlands. As described by Michelle Warren, ‘border writing’ is vital to Arthurian mythologies to the extent Arthurian literature explores and reifies the ‘paradoxes that inhere in limits and boundaries’ while examining competing claims over ‘space, ethnicity, [and] language.’7 Following Warren’s criteria, Carl is a border text that both comes from and explores the ambiguity of boundaries: political, geographic, class, and literary. I see this interest in liminality and border states throughout both versions of The Carl of Carlisle, and this preoccupation is exposed in its primary theme of courtesy and sovereignty. Who controls the border regions between recognized (if emergent) national entities and identities? Who should be in charge when a perceived social inequality exists between two actors, but the interaction takes place in the realm controlled by the supposed inferior? As we read Arthurian romance, we note their competing ideological and generic claims, and their occasionally conflicted senses of audience expectation and reception. The Carl of Carlisle tests the limits of audience expectation through comic juxtaposition of conventionally opposed identities of class, birth, and gender, and in doing so investigates the liminal spaces between conventions of Arthurian romance. Romances are often animated...

Gawayne's Fortunate Fall in Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight*

Gawayne's Fortunate Fall in Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight*

Le Morte Arthur, Ane Compendious and Breve Tractate Concerning Ye Office and Dewtie of Kyngis, Spiritual Pastoris and Temporall Jugis and Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. an Alliterative Romance Poem

Le Morte Arthur, Ane Compendious and Breve Tractate Concerning Ye Office and Dewtie of Kyngis, Spiritual Pastoris and Temporall Jugis and Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. an Alliterative Romance Poem

Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, A Fourteenth Century Poem done into Modern English Verse.

Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, A Fourteenth Century Poem done into Modern English Verse.

Kenneth Hare, R. M. Wilson. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight; Roger Sherman Loomis and Rudolph Willard. Medieval English Verse and Prose in Modernized Versions

Journal Article Kenneth Hare, R. M. Wilson. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight; Roger Sherman Loomis and Rudolph Willard. Medieval English Verse and Prose in Modernized Versions Get access Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. A Fourteenth-century Poem done into Modern English by Kenneth Hare. With an introduction, &c, by R. M. Wilson. Pp. 84. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948. 9s. net.Medieval English Verse and Prose in Modernized Versions. By Roger Sherman Loomis and Rudolph Willard. Pp. xii+557. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948. $4.50. A. Macdonald A. Macdonald Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume os-XXV, Issue 100, 1 October 1949, Pages 350–351, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/os-XXV.100.350 Published: 01 October 1949

Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight

Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight

A Reading in ‘Sir Gawayne.’

A Reading in ‘Sir Gawayne.’

Sir Gawayne’s Green Chapel

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The Word "Abloy" in "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight"

The Word "Abloy" in "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight"

The Word "Abloy" in "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight," L. 1174

The Word "Abloy" in "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight," L. 1174

The Problems of Authorship and Date of "Wynnere and Wastoure"

When in 1897 Professor Gollancz first edited The Parlement of the Thre Ages and Wynnere and Wastoure, for the Roxburghe Club, he suggested that the two were the work of one author. For this conclusion he gave seven reasons: (1) The poems have lines in common, and (2) passages in one are strongly reminiscent of passages in the other. (3) The general framework is the same. (4) Both use verbal forms in -ande as nouns. (5) Both show careless confusion in details. (6) Tests of language and meter do not tell against the identity of authorship. (7) The general impression conveyed by the two pieces tells strongly in favor of the view. Kdlbing in his review of Gollancz' edition accepted this conclusion, saying that the use of alliteration was practically the same in both poems.1 In his second edition of the Parlement,2 Professor Gollancz said: No criteria gainsay the theory that would assign it [the Parlement] to the author of Wynnere and Wastoure. If we look at the evidence for this opinion, however, we find it not strong. The similarities in phrasing and idea are not more remarkable than those which connect these poems with Piers the Plowman and Sir Gawayne and the Grene Kny3t. As a test of authorship such similarities are valueless, as Mr. George Neilson's reductio ad absurdum has demonstrated. As to the third point, the framework is the vision as found in Piers the Plowman and many other Middle English poems. In regard to the fourth point, the use of forms in -ande as nouns is extraordinary, but only one instance is found in each poem, and in one of these the B-Manuscript of Parlement reads make instead of makande. The use is also found sporadically elsewhere, for example, in the reports of the Guilds, to ye

Notes on "Cleanness" and "Sir Gawayne"

What does bougounz mean? The Ni.E.D. says: '?some kind of musical instrument'; Stratmann-Bradley has: 'an instrument of music.' These renderings are, of course, purely contextual, and, I think, inaccurate. Professor E. Weekley seems to have put students on the right track, in his article on 'Anglo-Romance Etymologies' in the Transactions of the Philological Society (1907-10; pt ii. pp. 205 ff.) s.v. Bludgeon, which he suggests may be < O.F. boug(e)on, boujon, etc.: he concludes: 'the M.E. bougounz, only recorded once, may quite well be a beating instrument.' Following this hint, I suggest that it means here, 'drum-sticks.' The most frequent meaning of O.F. bougon is 'a heavy cross-bow bolt with a large head, intended for smashing rather than piercing.' (Cf. O.F. garrot and materas, with the same meaning, also used in the sense of 'cudgel.') Various other meanings of bougon are given in the Dictionaries, many denoting some instrument with a rounded, swollen, extremity, or one with such a rounded swelling in some part of its length. Diez derives boujon, therefore, < btilla, boulel. We may perhaps compare O.E. cycgel ='cudgel,' which Kluge connects with N.H.G. kugel = 'ball' and keule ='club' (presumably with a knob or rounded, swollen, end), and Skeat with SWED. kugge-'cog' and DAN. dial. kug(e)l, kygl, =' rounded,' 'convex.'

The Text of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight

The Text of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight

Notes on "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight"

Notes on "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight"

"Capados," and the Date of "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight"

Previous articleNext article Free"Capados," and the Date of "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight"George L. HamiltonGeorge L. Hamilton Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 5, Number 3Jan., 1908 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/386750 Views: 143 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight," Lines 697-702

"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight," Lines 697-702

VI.—The Author of the Pearl, Considered in the Light of his Theological Opinions

Among the English poets of the fourteenth century the one who deserves the seat next to Chaucer is the anonymous author of the four poems: Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, The Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. The singular beauty of these poems has long stimulated scholars to the most diligent efforts to discover their author.The first attempt to identify the unknown poet was made in 1838 by Dr. Edwin Guest, who confidently assigned these poems to Huchown, the mysterious Scotch poet mentioned by the chronicler Wyntoun. At one time or another, almost every piece of fourteenth century verse which shows a northerly dialect has been ascribed to Huchown; this identification of our author was therefore natural, if not inevitable. In the following year Sir Frederic Madden, in his edition of Sir Gawayne, accepted Dr. Guest's opinion that Huchown was its author. At the same time he recognized the fact that the poem in its present form is not in the Scotch dialect, and suggested as an explanation that it had been rewritten “by a scribe of the Midland counties.” With this recognition that Sir Gawayne as we have it is in the Midland rather than the Scottish dialect, there was manifestly slender reason for continuing to suppose that Huchown was the author.

Notes on Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight.

Notes on Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight.