The Romance Genre: the Chivalry Concept of Courtly Love - Research Paper Example

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Draft The story’s first part happens in King Arthur’s court during a New Year’s feast. As they sit to wait for the start of the feast, a wondrous stranger pops into the hall. The stranger is remarkable because he is entirely green, and nevertheless carries an air of handsome civility, wearing splendid green and gold clothes and armor. His horse too is decorated in ornate green, and the stranger knight holds a branch of holly in one hand and a formidable battle-ax on the other. When Arthur stands to talk to him, the stranger says he has come to the court to play a Christmas game, and whoever agrees to play the game will be allowed to strike the Green Knight on the spot, in the middle of the court. Arthur agrees to play the game, but Gawain rises to take the boon instead. The stranger gives Gawain the battle ax, and Gawain cleaves off the Green Knight’s head but does not die, instead picks its head, which speaks to Gawain. The stranger charges Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel the next year’s morning to exchange his blow. The feast continues after the stranger leaves, but this part ends by hiding the adventures that await Gawain. The second part describes the nature and passing of the year together with Gawain’s preparation, and his leaving for the meeting with the Green Knight. Part three of the story covers the challenges, and tests Gawain faces before he meets with Green Knight, while the fourth part shows Gawain waking in the morning and preparing to meet with Green Knight. Gawain meets Green Knight who welcomes him, and praises him for maintaining his part of the agreement. Story Analysis The story brings conventions of the Romance genre, with Gawain appearing to fit neatly into the genre of medieval romance. The romance genre has several characteristics, which includes a celebration of the warrior society, a setting amidst the feudal decency, close attention to details of the ceremony, and most importantly an emphasis on the chivalry concept of courtly love. The idea of love hinged on the relationship between the ideal hero, the knight errant and the noble woman he loves. However, in the upper-class society of chivalry, the extreme courtly love was for an unattainable woman, usually the queen of a knight’s lord. A knight’s love for this woman inspired him to do brave deeds, thus the code of chivalry focused on the protection of the weak and fair elements of the society by the loyal self-sacrificing knight. All the characters of romance are present in Gawain, and calls for consideration in light of the conventions of the romance genre. From the beginning of the story, conventions of romance genre are evident. Examples are the Arthur’s court, the Arthur and his knights, and the celebrations of the New Year, which display the chivalric society at its greatest and most vibrant time. The other convention is the superlative mention of the King and knights as the most famous and most handsome of kings. The story mentions the Queen’s beauty and nobility paying attention to her dress and accessories. All these settings and elements give the poetry action within the convention of the romance. There is also link between the Celtic mythologies and the story. Celts who lived in the British Isles before the arrival of the Romans had a strong pagan belief and ritual practices. This link in Gawain is noticeable in two ways: in the Christmas/New Years setting and in the figure of the Green Knight. Celtic pagans believed the year as an important cycle in both human and natural worlds. They designated a certain time of the year to mark an end of an old year, and the start of a new one associated with strange things expected to happen and the human world was likely to meet other world of mystical changes. The visit of the Green Knight to Arthur’s court in the New Year can be seen as the “otherworldly” visit to the human world. The story also has symbolism presented in the poetry. The Green Knight presents himself as a personification of the renewable indestructible forces of nature entering human society on New Year’s Day. However, his description merits a close attention because the poet does not portray him solely as a figure of terror and foreignness. The Green Knight is in fact a mixture of the familiar and the foreign due to his opulent and noble dressing. He functions as a luminal figure mediating between the civilized chivalry world and the unknown natural world. The first two stanzas in section to show a lovely description of the nature and the passing of the seasons. The poet has portrayed nature as an ever-changing world, which sustains the human world and yet not affected, it is always continuing in its yearly cycle. Therefore, as much as Gawain would like to avoid meeting with the Green Knight, the year moves forward, and the seasons push along with winter again. The next description of nature emphasizes this disparity even more as Gawain; a solitary human figure passes through a great and desolate wasteland looking for the green chapel. He encounters all the destructive natural aspects: wild forests, treacherous bogs, cold rain, ragged moss, and vicious beasts. The only thing that can save Gawain from destruction is his faith in God, and in a larger sense, faith in God enables humankind to negotiate, and survive natural forces both outside and within him. The symbolism in this section is seen in Gawain’s two-sided shield. It serves as a physical and moral protection. Gawain also believes in Christian and chivalric values where the shield represents this, protecting him from physical dangers while serving as a reminder of his spiritual and moral beliefs. The outside Pentangle can be taken as a symbol of his chivalric values of franchise, cleanness, charity, fellowship, and courtesy. The sign of the Virgin Mary symbolizes Christian faith. In section three, Gawain fights with maintaining his moral virtues by resisting the temptations from the lady. In most cases, the lady uses complex flirtations and societal conventions that recall Gawain to his sense of duty, to pursue green knight. Interestingly enough, Gawain uses his civility to fend off lust dangers. The green girdle given to Gawain by the lady is a deceptive object for it claims to protect a man, but here it causes Gawain to breach his moral code and ruins his sense of self. Although Gawain receives it in fear of his death, there are still trappings of romantic love. Yet the green girdle and Green Knight seem to emanate from a world of magic, the otherworldly, the natural, and fertile proving indestructible. The green girdle can therefore represent everything not accepted by chivalry and Christian standards: Gawain’s keeping it goes against his code of honesty, courage, and faith. The fourth section brings the most striking images of a desolate world of nature. The first stanza describes the terrible storm on New Year’s Eve, emphasizing Gawain’s sense of dread as he fearfully goes to meet with the Green Knight. It presents a good example of pathetic fallacy, a literary device where the weather and the natural world echo the emotions of a character. This section takes the reader to the end of the narrative by showing the way in which events are patterned, and what they have to do with the themes. The first feat takes place in the court, the second in an outdoor journey, the third between the royal court and outdoors, and the final feat is an outdoor journey that ends in the original Arthurian court. This thematically presents alteration between the outdoors (Natural World) and the royal court (the human world). Gawain begins strongly in the human world, confident in rules of chivalry and morality, which guide human society. Nevertheless, after a perilous journey in the natural world full of challenges, he returns to the human world with lost confidence in its safety, righteousness, and nagging uncertainty about the moral code he once believed in so strongly. Section two themes i. Nature versus Human Society Gawain must deal with his quest, and is forced to confront external and internal forces of nature in the form of Green Knight, the winter landscape, his sexual desire and lastly his fear of death. ii. Faith in God This is trusting in God’s protection. An example is in section two when Gawain takes his crown, which has a portrait of the Virgin Mary, which Gawain believes, is a protection. iii. Viability of Chivalric Values These values guided people in the provision of their duty. These values formed an essential part of Gawain’s belief system. An example is his encounter with the seductive lady in section two measured the viability of his chivalric values. Styles Symbolism (2511) The Pentangle has represented the Gawain’s virtues: to be faultless in his five senses, never to fail in his fingers, being faithful to five wounds Christ received on the cross, receive the five joys that virgin Mary had with Jesus, and to possess brotherly love, piety, courtesy and chastity. Quotes i. “So many wonders befell him in the hills, It would be tedious to recount the least part of them. Sometimes he fights dragons, and wolves as well, Sometimes with wild men who dwell among the crags, Both with bulls and with bears, and other times boars, And ogres who chased him across the high fells” (718-723) The quote describes the beasts with which Gawain meets, “mervayl,” translated as wonders describes supernatural happenings. In addition, some of the animals Gawain meets with, like dragons and ogres might be considered part of the supernatural world. ii. “Fighting troubled him less than the rigorous winter. When the cold clear water fell from the clouds And froze before it could reach the faded earth. Half dead with the cold Gawain slept in hisarmour More nights than enough among bare rocks, Where splashing from the hilltops the freezing stream runs, And hung over his head in hard icicles. Thus in danger, hardship and continual pain The knight rides across the land until Christmas Eve alone” (726-735) The fact that the cold winter weather troubles Gawain even more than the fierce beasts with which he fights emphasizes the instability of a man’s position when forced to endure the elements without the protection of walls and a fire. Gawain’s suffering in the open wilderness helps us to appreciate the contrast represented by the civilized and fire-lit halls of Arthur and the Bertilak. Work Cited Armitage, Simon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. U. K: Faber & Faber, 2008 Internet resource Read More