Author : Larry Dean Benson
Publisher : New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 41,97 MB
Release : 1965
Category : Arthurian romances
ISBN :
Author : E.L. Risden
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 16,3 MB
Release : 2018-03-09
Category : History
ISBN : 1476634327
The 14th century English alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is admired for its morally complex plot and brilliant poetics. A chivalric romance placed in an Arthurian setting, it has since received acclaim for its commentary regarding important socio-political and religious concerns. The poem's technical brilliance blends psychological depth and vivid language to produce an effect widely considered superior to any other work of the time. Although the poem is a combination of English alliterative meter, romanticism, and a wide-ranging knowledge of Celtic lore, continental materials and Latin classics, the extent to which Classical antecedents affected or directed the poem is a point of continued controversy among literary scholars. This collection of essays by scholars of diverse interests addresses this puzzling and fascinating question. The introduction provides an expansive background for the topic, and subsequent essays explore the extent to which classical Greek, Roman, Arabic, Christian and Celtic influences are revealed in the poem's opening and closing allusions, themes, and composition. Essays discuss the way in which the anonymous author of Sir Gawain employs figural echoes of classical materials, cultural memoirs of past British tradition, and romantic re-textualizations of Trojan and British literature. It is argued that Sir Gawain may be understood as an Aeneas, Achilles, or Odysseus figure, while the British situation in the 14th century may be understood as analogous to that of ancient Troy.
Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 31,79 MB
Release : 2008-11-17
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0393334155
One of the earliest great stories of English literature after ?Beowulf?, ?Sir Gawain? is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that " helps] liberate ?Gawain ?from academia" (?Sunday Telegraph?).
Author :
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 22,60 MB
Release : 1959-11-30
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780140440928
The inspiration for the major motion picture The Green Knight starring Dev Patel. ‘Be prepared to perform what you promised, Gawain; Seek faithfully till you find me …’ A New Year’s feast at King Arthur’s court is interrupted by the appearance of a gigantic Green Knight, resplendent on horseback. He challenges any one of Arthur’s men to behead him, provided that if he survives he can return the blow a year later. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and decapitates the knight – but the mysterious warrior cheats death and vanishes, bearing his head with him. The following winter Gawain sets out to find the Knight in the wild Northern lands and to keep his side of the bargain. One of the great masterpieces of Middle English poetry, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight magically combines elements of fairy tale and heroic sagas with the pageantry, chivalry and courtly love of medieval Romance. Brian Stone’s evocative translation is accompanied by an introduction that examines the Romance genre, and the poem’s epic and pagan sources. This edition also includes essays discussing the central characters and themes, theories about authorship and Arthurian legends, and suggestions for further reading and notes. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Author : Anonymous
Publisher : Broadview Press
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 49,12 MB
Release : 2012-10-19
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 1770483551
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a masterpiece of medieval English literature and one of the finest Arthurian tales in any language. Though its ingenious plotting and verbal artistry continue to dazzle readers, it is written in a challenging regional dialect and uses many words that were already archaic when the poem was written in the late fourteenth century. This edition is designed to make the poem, in its original Middle English, accessible to students and general readers. Following standards adopted for editing other Middle English poets, the edition lightly normalizes spellings to make words more recognizable for a modern audience. Extensive marginal glossing of difficult words, thorough on-page explanatory notes, and a comprehensive glossary offer further support for readers. The historical appendices include other examples of medieval romance from France and Britain.
Author : R. A. Waldron
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 13,18 MB
Release : 1970
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9780810103283
Chrysanthemum loves her name, until she starts going to school and the other children make fun of it.
Author : Elisabeth Brewer
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 12,58 MB
Release : 1992
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0859913597
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' is a great poem that gives some powerful twists to traditional materials. The story combines two ancient elements, beheading and seduction, in a fresh and remarkable way; it takes familiar medieval themes -- the feast, the seasons, the arming of the warrior, the hunt -- and gives them a new glamor. The 'intertextuality' of this brilliant poem can be most clearly seen through Elisabeth Brewer's modern English versions of other related medieval writings. Her book is a delightful and unusual small anthology of medieval literature; but its greatest success lies in providing a context for a fuller understanding of "Sir Gawain" through its presentation of extracts and poems (including translations from Celtic and French originals) illustrating the tradition in which the Gawain-poet wrote, underscoring his own great achievement. -- From publisher's description.
Author : John M Bowers
Publisher : University Press of Florida
Page : 178 pages
File Size : 33,96 MB
Release : 2021-08-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0813072107
In An Introduction to the Gawain Poet, John Bowers surveys an expanded selection of the works of Chaucer's anonymous contemporary, considering Sir Gawain and the Green Knight alongside the poet's lesser known but no less brilliant works. In addition to his succinct introductions and plot summaries, Bowers skillfully details the cultural, historical, political, and religious contexts for these works, synthesizing them with close reading of selected passages. Perhaps his most exciting contribution to the field is his choice to historicize the poet's life and works in the context of the royal culture of King Richard II, boldly contending that it was highly possible the Gawain Poet was a frequent visitor to Richard's court in London. The final chapter surveys the works influenced by, as well as the influences reflected in, the poet's work, from the Bible to The Lord of the Rings. The attention Bowers pays to the critical tradition that has developed around these texts over the past hundred years makes An Introduction to the Gawain Poet an ideal volume for both undergraduate students and scholars of the Gawain Poet. Bowers has marshaled his formidable skills to create a book impressive in its balanced combination of breadth and depth.
Author : Andrew Breeze
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 165 pages
File Size : 16,34 MB
Release : 2023-01-09
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1666929557
The Historical Arthur and The Gawain Poet: Studies on Arthurian and Other Traditions delves into the origins of Arthur and reveals the author of the famous Gawain Manuscript. Its first part contains evidence for the Arthur of film and legend as a real person, a Celtic commander (not a king) who fought battles in North Britain during the terrible volcanic winter of 536-7, before dying a hero's death in a conflict on Hadrian's Wall. Its second part moves on to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an Arthurian poem on magic, near-death, and near-seduction. Its author has always been unknown, but Dr. Breeze uses arguments of the US scholar Ann W. Astell to date the text to 1387 and name the poet as Sir John Stanley (d. 1414), a Cheshire and Lancashire grandee. He can now be recognized as an artist of genius, comparable to Chaucer himself. What is said in this book on John Stanley and his circle thus allows the greatest advance in Arthurian Studies since 1934, when Walter Oakeshott discovered the Winchester Malory amongst manuscripts of an English school library.
Author : Ad Putter
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 20,58 MB
Release : 2014-09-19
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1317893123
The late 14th century produced a crop of brilliant writers: Chaucer, Langland and Gower. Their achievement was rivalled only by a series of four works generally agreed to have been written by a single northern author, known as the Gawain-Poet. This book introduces the reader to the Gawain-poet's four surviving works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Pearl and Cleanness. The four poems are made accessible to the student by setting them in their relevant historical and cultural context and by developing some lines of critical argument. All studies are based on the author's own research and translations.
