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A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
J A Burrow
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A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
J A Burrow
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Originally published in 1965, A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an interpretation of the most important poem in Middle English literature, the only fourteenth century work which can stand beside Chaucer. The book examines the poem's conventions and purposes in a critical analysis and provides a useful and insightful introduction to 'Sir Gawain'. It will be of interest to students and academics studying the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
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IV
THE FOURTH FITT
I
THE ACTION OF THE FOURTH FITT divides into three parts: the journey to the Green Chapel, the encounter with the Green Knight, and the return to Camelot. I shall discuss these in turn, beginning with the journey.
The fitt opens some time before dawn on New Yearâs Day. There is a snowstorm, and indoors the hero lies awake in his lamplit chamber, listening to the wind and the crowings of the cock:
Ăe werbelande wynde wapped fro ĂŸe hyÆ·e,
And drof vche dale ful of dryftes ful grete.
Ăe leude lystened ful wel ĂŸat leÆ· in his bedde,
ĂaÆ· he lowkeÆ· his liddeÆ·, ful lyttel he slepes;
Bi vch kok ĂŸat crue he knwe wel ĂŸe steuen. (2004â8)
This passage marks the limits, in one direction, of the poetâs realism. Nowhere else does he go further in evoking what it would really feel like to be on a quest like Gawainâsâwakefulness, a heightened sense of the hostility of the external world, a pressing awareness of time. The state of mind is wonderfully conveyed. Here as in his evocation of the corresponding bodily sensations (âNer slayn wyth ĂŸe slete he sleped in his yrnesâ), the poet gives much more than we expect, or normally get, from a romanceâor indeed from any narrative genre before the novel. The solitary-earnest (mental, physical and moral) of his poem is not simply gestured at, with talk of fear, hardship and remorseâit is entered into. Or entered into up to a pointâfor the realism is not unqualified by other interests. In the present passage the poet is interested, certainly, in what it would really feel like; but he is also interested in what it would look likeâa very different matterâin the picturesque effect of a snowstorm before dawn, a chamber and a lamp. One must take account, too, of the touch of symbolism in the crowing cock. This bird is traditionally emblematic of spiritual alertnessâwaking men from the âsleepâ of the world. It is associated with the coming of the Last Judgment, and also (through the story of Peter denying Christ) with the oncoming of penance after sin.1 These associations are in keeping, we shall see, with the poetâs idea of the ensuing day as a day of judgment and penance for Gawain. The cock, like much else in this last and finest fitt, belongs not only in the literal but also in the symbolic action, and makes a striking and, it seems, effortlessly appropriate contribution to each.
Here and elsewhere, then, the poet enters into backstage experiences of hardship and fear, and makes us (up to a point) feel what they feel like. But it is characteristic of him that, having done so, he withdraws and, as it were, corrects the effect. Just as the nightmare on the morning of New Yearâs Eve gave way abruptly to the entry of the lady, so here Gawainâs solitary fears are forgotten once he calls for his âchamberlainâ and starts donning his armour. There is no real continuity in either case: the Gawain who examines his armour for rust and praises Gryngoletâs condition is not continuous with the Gawain who lies in bed listening to the cock. He could be, of courseâit is not a question of implausibility; but he isnât. The poet goes, perhaps, as far as he could go with available techniquesâto evoke âwhat it would really feel likeâ being very much a matter of techniques.
When we turn to consider the arming itself (ll. 2013â43), the public, ceremonial action which follows the private vigil, we again need to think of techniqueâthis time, the authorâs favourite technique of repetitiĂn-with-variation. Very obviously, the fourth fitt is here repeating the second, just as the third fitt so often repeats itself. First there are the âcloĂŸeÆ·â (the doublet and âcapadosâ specified in ll. 571â3), then the âoĂŸer harnaysâ, the body-armour (specified in ll. 574â85), then the coat-armour, with the pentangle embroidered on it, worn over the mail (compare 1. 586), then the sword belted round the hips (compare ll. 588â9). This brings us, in the second fitt, to the end of a stanza and of the first stage of Gawainâs preparations. Having belted on his sword, he goes off to hear Mass âoffred and honoured at ĂŸe heÆ·e auterâ (593). In the fourth fitt, however, there is an extra itemâthe ladyâs girdle, which Gawain puts on after the sword, wrapping it twice round his waist over the âryol red cloĂŸcâ of the coat-armour.
In the poetâs introduction of this new item, one thing is particularly noticeableâhis efforts to bring it into juxtaposition with the pentangle. This was not altogether easy. It was the pentangle on the shield which was described at such length in the second fitt; but in the order of a knightâs departure, which the poet is scrupulous to observe, the shield does not come until the very endâafter he has mounted his horse, and therefore long after Gawain could reasonably be shown putting on the girdle. So the poet makes nothing of the shield on this occasion (it is just mentioned in 1. 2061), and turns his attention to the coat-armour, which is also, as was customary, decorated with the âconysaunceâ of its bearer, the pentangle (1. 2026, cp. 637). Here he is able, with a little syntactic ingenuity, to bring the pentangle up against the girdle, despite the sword which, in the order of events, still comes between them:
Whyle ĂŸe wlonkest wedes he warp on hymseluenâ
His cote wyth ĂŸe conysaunce of ĂŸe clere werkeÆ·
Ennurned vpon veluet, vertuus stoneÆ·
Aboute beten and bounden, enbrauded semeÆ·,
And fayre furred withinne wyth fayre peluresâ
Æ·et laft he not ĂŸe lace, ĂŸe ladieÆ· gifte,
Ăat forgat not Gawayn for gode of hymseluen.
Bi he hade belted ĂŸe bronde vpon his balÆ·e hauncheÆ·,
Ăenn dressed he his drurye double hym aboute. (2025â33)
The pentangle, which occupied such a commanding position in the first arming scene, is here subordinated both rhetorically and grammatically (âwhyleâ has something like its modern concessive force) to the âlaceâ It is almost as if the latter has taken the pentangleâs place:
Ăe gordel of ĂŸt grene silke ĂŸat gay wel bisemed,
Vpon ĂŸat ryol red eloĂŸe ĂŸat ryche watÆ· to sehe we. (2035â6)
In the first arming it was the pentangle that âbisemed ĂŸt segge semlyly fayreâ, and the pentangle that was âschapen ⊠ryally wyth red golde vpon rede gowleÆ·â. Gawainâs colour-scheme has become more complicated: gold and green, not just gold, on red.
It is worth noticing how the poet sets out to direct our moral feelings at this point. He does not encourage any rigorous condemnation of the hero. Indeed it is here that he introduces the first of his three already-mentioned apologies:
Bot wered not ĂŸis ilk wyÆ·e for wele ĂŸis gordel,
For pryde of ĂŸe pendaunteÆ·, ĂŸaÆ· polyst ĂŸay were,
And ĂŸaÆ· ĂŸe glyterande golde glent vpon endeÆ·,
But for to sauen hymself, when suffer hym byhoued. (2037â40)
Gawainâs motive for wearing the girdle (and, by inference, his motive for concealing it from the host) is at least not a contemptible oneâchurlish covetousness (âfor weleâ) or womanish vanity (âfor prydeâ).2 He is concerned to âsauen hymselfâ, and this, the poet implies, is understandable enoughâparticularly when one recalls the unnerving character of the impending danger, âto byde bale withoute dabate of bronde hym to were / oĂŸer knyffeâ On the other hand, the poet does not adopt a merely indulgent attitude towards his hero, either here or anywhere else in the fourth fitt. Consider the lines already quoted:
Æ·et laft he not ĂŸt lace, ĂŸt ladieÆ· gifte,
Ăat forgat not Gawayn for gode of hymseluen.
The repetition âÆ·et laft notâŠ ĂŸat forgat notâ is obviously damagingâit asks to be delivered almost contemptuouslyâand so, a little less obviously, is the phrase âfor gode of hymseluenâ. It suggests (as âto sauen hymselfâ, in its context, does not) the traditional idea of amor sui, the source of sin.3 Such a suggestion implies, of course, an attitude quite distinct from that expressed in the ensuing apology; but the poet makes no attempt to reconcile these opposites. For the moment he simply leaves the reader with them: Gawainâs conduct is âunderstandableâ and it is sinful. It is the business not of this passage but of the rest of the poem to articulate these two attitudes, to reconcile them as they should be reconciled, without either indulgence or rigour.
Once Gawain has donned the girdle he is ready, and he makes his way out into the castle court, where he finds his horse waiting:
Thenne watÆ· Gryngolet grayĂŸe, ĂŸat gret watÆ· and huge. (2047)
The first half of this line is almost identical with a half-line which occurs at the corresponding point in the first arming (âBi ĂŸat watÆ· Gryngolet graythâ, 1. 597); and this repetition serves to draw attention to another significant variation between the two scenes. On the first occasion Gawain, having donned his armour, hears Mass before going out to Gryngolet; on the present occasion he does not. The omission is striking. Gawain, as I have already noticed, is distinguished in the romances for his eagerness to hear Mass (the chief motive for his prayer on Christmas Eve); and the Perlesvaus says that he never left a âhostelâ without hearing Mass first, if he could.4 It seems particularly od...