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Knight in Tarnished Armour: The Meaning of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"

Author(s): Gordon M. Shedd

Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jan., 1967), pp. 3-

Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association

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jstor

JANUARY

1967

VOL. 62 NUMBER I

KNIGHT IN TARNISHED ARMOUR: THE MEANING OF

'SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT'

Now holde youre mouth, par charitee,

Bothe knyght

and lady free,

And herkneth to my spelle;

Of bataille and of chivalry,

And of ladyes love-drury

Anon I wol yow

telle.

(Sir Thopas)

Few students of medieval letters would have the temerity

to suggest

that the

'drasty speche'

of Geoffrey

constitutes memorable romance;

after all, even Harry

Bailly

loses his customary sang-froid

and blurts out 'Namoore'. We accept

without

question

the view that in Sir Thopas

Chaucer is parodying

a literary form,

and while

we may

think the Host something

less than tactful,

subscribe wholeheartedly

to his

verdict that this kind of stuff is 'nat worth a toord'. Of course, parody implies

excess or deficiency

of some type

in its target,

and it is true that by

the time of the

mythical pilgrimage

to Canterbury

we find abundant signs

in romance, stylistically

and thematically,

of both extremes of mediocrity.

Yet it is also in this latter half

of the fourteenth century

that there appears

'le joyau

du moyen age',

the unani-

mously praised

alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,

and we are

faced with the apparent non-sequitur

of a withering parody

and a superb

flower

of the romance genre being

born simultaneously.

To explain away

this seeming

contradiction simply by relegating

Sir Gawain to

the limbo of a literary

tradition lying

outside the mainstream of romance is too easy.

The poem's author,

whatever else he may

have been,

was no northern provincial

out of contact with the current scene;

nor is Sir Gawain merely

a deliberately

archaic recreation of an earlier, golden age

of chivalric story.

In his own way

the

alliterative poet

is as sophisticated

as the cosmopolite Chaucer,

and his poem

is as

'modern' as Troilus and Criseyde.

This twin birth of parody

and perfection

must be

accounted for in some other way,

and the explanation

lies in recognition

of the fact

that Sir Gawain and Sir Thopas

are not mutually contradictory: ultimately they

are

both criticisms of romance.

Aside from this fundamental similarity

the two works do not admit of fruitful

comparison,

and there is nothing

to be gained by attempting

to force them into

the same mould. The tail-rhyme

stanzas of Sir Thopas

constitute an amusing

but

essentially negative

reaction to the repetitious plots

and pedestrian

verse so often

found in medieval narrative,

whereas the highly-wrought

northern poem

moves

beyond simple

concern with triteness of form and content,

to grapple

with the

limitations of ideal inherent in chivalric literature. Chaucer uses a mirror of

comic distortion to produce caricature,

and annihilates with laughter

a seemingly

shopworn genre.

The Gawain-poet (who

in effect answers Chaucer's criticism by

creating

a work of great

formal beauty)

utilizes a magnifying

lens to throw into

sharp

focus the assumptions

of romance, revealing through

his portrayal

of Gawain

and Arthur's court the weaknesses as well as the strengths

of the knightly

code.

1 Gaston Paris, Histoire litteraire de la France, xxx (I888),

p. 71.

GORDON M. SHEDD

the compact

made with the Man in Green. Thus, though

the Beheading

Game

as here utilized is thoroughly

traditional in execution,

we react favourably,

and in

fact are cheered by

the sight

of the legendary

Gawain comporting

himself with his

customary grace

and virtue.

The comfortable and familiar

-

not to say predictable-

romance pattern

invoked up

to this point

in the story

is not so guileless

as it may appear,

however.

Having

aroused in us the expectation

that Sir Gawain is to be another document in

support

of the chivalric code of conduct,

the poet proceeds

to thrust his hero into

another

-

and infinitely

more difficult

-

testing situation,

in the course of which

our sanguine expectations

of a successful outcome are rudely upset by

the failure of

Gawain. The shock is rendered greater

and the irony

more striking by

our

realization that the Temptation

is no less than a repetition

of the Beheading Game,

in terms of the chivalric qualities

tested. The poet employs

a new set of traditional

story elements,

but he is probing

for the same virtues: courage, honour, loyalty,

and courtesy.

What constitutes the essential difference of this trial from the first,

a difference which makes it so difficult of successful execution,

is the simple

fact that

Gawain does not know he is being

tested.

Unfortunately,

critical interpretations

of the poem

have largely ignored

this

crucial truth about the Temptation,

and in concentrating

on the superficial aspects

of difference between the two trials,

have often read the second part

of the poem

as a chastity

test. Such a misreading

not only

obscures the carefully wrought

parallel

structure of the work, but raises the question why

the poet, seemingly

much in control of his traditional material,

has committed the major gaffe

selecting

as exemplar

of clannes the Arthurian figure

least likely

to qualify.

The

most damaging

effect of such an interpretation, however,

is the muddiness of

meaning

which it foists on the poem

as a whole. Read as a chastity test,

the

Temptation

makes Gawain practically

a subject

for canonization; as a result,

his failure of courage

and honour becomes minimized to the point

of apparent

irrelevance,

and the work itself becomes no more than a sermon.

One cannot,

of course, disguise

the fact that Bertilak's lady

has every

intention

of trying

to seduce Gawain. She makes this abundantly

clear at their first meeting

in the hero's bedroom,

with the unblushingly

direct statement:

ar welcum to my cors,

Yowre awen won to wale. (I237)

Three times she comes to the knight's room,

and each time suggests

more or less

delicately

that her favours are his for the taking. Throughout

the term of the

three encounters she manipulates

the thread of conversation,

and always

it is of

love. Despite

her singlemindedness

of purpose, though,

we see no indication of

libidinous response

on the part

of Gawain until the third morning.

He replies

with

tactful good

humour to her questions

about himself and love,

and delicately

parries

her persistent proposals,

all the while demurring modestly

when confronted

with her statements about his reputation as a ladies' man. The knight

shows no

sign

of being swept

off his feet by

the lady's advances, nor does he give

the appear-

ance of unduly relishing

her kisses. He is completely

in control of the situation-

at least until that dangerous

moment on the third morning when, awaking

from a

terror-filled dream,

he is thrown off guard by

the sight

of the seductively

beautiful

chatelaine,

who enters his room

5

The

Meaning of

'Sir Gawain and the Green

Knight'

Hir bryuen

face & hir 1rote prowen al naked,

Hir brest bare bifore,

& bihinde eke. (1740)

For the first time we see Gawain in danger

of compromising

himself:

Gret perile

bi-twene hem stod,

Nif Marye

of hir kny3t

con mynne. (1 768)

But wherein consists the danger?

Not in a violation of chastity,

for despite

the

mention of Mary,

what is expressed very explicitly

in the following

lines is the fear

of Gawain's violating

the observance of courtesy

to the lady

and that of loyalty

to his host. The poem

states unequivocally:

He cared for his cortaysye,

lest cralayn

he were,

& more for his meschef, 3if

he schulde make synne

& be traytor

to bat tolke bat pat telde a3t. (I773)

The major

sins which Gawain contemplates

here are sins against

the chivalric

code,

not the code of specifically

Christian behaviour. The term synne

is used in

reference to unchastity,

but according

to the logic

of the knight's thought

we see

it to be in effect a venial sin,

more important

for its implications

of secular failure

than in itself. The betrayal

of Bertilak,

which by

definition would follow from the

hero's submission to the lady's appeal,

is for Gawain the truly

heinous offence to be

avoided;

and it is the contemplation

of this possibility

which causes him to exclaim,

'God schylde

... pat schal not befalle' (1776).

Bertilak's lady

bends every

effort to seduce Gawain,

but not because she is

concerned to test his reputation

as a chaste man. After all,

her conversation is

full of thinly-veiled

allusions to his fame as a lover. She employs

the device of sex

as a means to the end of testing

the knight's

sense of loyalty

to his host, and of

discovering

the limits of that courteous behaviour for which Gawain is famous.

The lady

knows full well that the offer of her person

would prove

irresistible to

most men, given

the power

of the masculine libido coupled

with pride

at the thought

of such a prestigious conquest.

She knows also that to refuse such a gift

from a

superior

is an extremely

difficult and delicate undertaking,

from the standpoint

preserving

the cortaysye

so important

to the chivalric way

of life. Gawain cannot

simply play

the boor and tell his hostess to desist (as might many

another hero of

romance): given

his traditional reputation

for refinement of manners

-

a point

which the lady

has harped

a number of times to his face - he must cope

with the

situation tactfully,

while preserving

the integrity

of his relationship

as Bertilak's

guest.

Thus the hero's chastity

is here no more than a negative

virtue. It is suppor-

ted by

moral probity

of a kind,

but moral probity

based specifically

on the tenets

of the chivalric code.

Though chastity

is not the subject

of this trial,

it is untrue to the story

and unfair

to Gawain to assert that the Temptation

is 'accompanied by

circumstances which

make it singularly untempting'

-

a point

of view held by

some critics who feel

that the audience is never meant to take the testing seriously.

The circumstances

referred to are the high position

of the lady (which

we have seen does not make her

1 Though

not admissible as direct proof,

it is worth keeping

in mind the point

of this type

of test

as traditionally

utilized in medieval literature: whether or not the hero knows he is being tested,

his

enforced exposure

to the temptress

is designed

to test in some fashion his obedience to the demands

of the guest-host relationship.

2 Friedman, 'Morgan', p. 266.

6

The

Meaning of

'Sir

Gawain

and the Green

Knight'

the dangers

inherent in his approaching

encounter. For a week he has been

insulated from the stark realities of the northern winter and his perilous

mission

the festive warmth of Bertilak's court. On this morning, however,

a concatena-

tion of circumstances conspires abruptly

to return him to consideration of the grim

possibilities

that wait outside, and the shock of their return is overwhelming.

a result the knight

succumbs to the fear they generate,

and in the toils of this

emotion is misled into reasoning

that to cheat certain death by accepting

the

talisman would be a 'noble' stratagem.

So disordered is Gawain's perspective

the sudden approach

of fear and the equally

sudden prospect

of salvation that

he listens in a daze to the lady's appeal

to take the Girdle

-

'kenne he bulged

with hir lrepe,

& poled hir to speke' (1859)

-

and unthinkingly agrees

both to

the lace and to conceal his acceptance

from Bertilak. Face to face one

moment with the fear of death,

and offered in the next the gift

of life,

the hero is

thoroughly

confounded by

his warring emotions,

and in this confused state commits

two grave

breaches of the chivalric code. By accepting

the Girdle he gives

in to

fear, and by agreeing

to the lady's request

for silence he violates his sworn word to

Bertilak vis-a-vis the exchange

of winnings.

The Gawain of this scene is neither the 'gay

Gawan' nor the knightly paragon

of the Beheading

Game and the first two bedroom scenes. H-e is a frightened,

confused,

fallible human being

whose emotions dominate his reason and becloud

his grasp

of right

and wrong.

And unlike the first testing situation, this trial has

elicited failure. Alone,

without the psychological support

of an audience and

without the armour of foreknowledge

that he is being

tested for chivalric virtues,

Gawain displays imperfections

that are all the more dramatically

obvious because

neither romance tradition nor the poem

itself thus far have prepared

for them.

The magnitude

of the hero's error in this moment of crisis is directly

linked to the

suddenness of the event; this

is worth stressing,

because it explains

Gawain's

dramatic access of self-awareness and shame at the Green Chapel,

and because it

explains away

his (to

some critics) 'hypocritical'

behaviour in the confession

scene. Not only

is the knight

blind to the moral implications

of his action at the

moment of accepting

the lace with its condition of silence: in his haste to be made

clean spiritually

and thus prepared

for the morrow, he rushes off to confession

without yet having

realized his wrong.

Fear of death is not a sin within the

purlieu

of religion,

of course,

but violation of a sworn compact

is. Gawain reviews

his sins 'of ke more &

Pe mynne' (I88I),

but that he doesn't recognize

the necessity

for confessing

his broken pledge

is deducible from his subsequent withholding

of the

Green Girdle from Bertilak. Had the priest

been informed of the sin,

return of the

lace would have been a necessary

condition of valid absolution;

had Gawain

intended to conceal his sin from the priest

he would not have bothered going

confession,

since by

definition the absolution received would be worthless. Engel-

hardt alludes to the hero's 'false conscience', and Burrow states that to a medieval

reader 'it would have been clear ... that Gawain was not "clene" and that the

priest's

absolution was invalid' ; the truth remains that the knight goes voluntarily

1 George J. Engelhardt,

'The Predicament of Gawain', M.,

16 (I955),

2 John Burrow,

'The Two Confession Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', M., 57 (I959),

8

GORDON M. SHEDD

to confession,

and afterwards appears genuinely uplifted

in spirit.

We can only

conclude that as yet

he has neither recognized

nor concealed his violated trawfie.

The high spirits displayed by

Gawain after being

shriven are such that those

around him feel compelled

to remark that 'bus myry

he wat

neuer are' (I891):

these are the high spirits

of a man buoyed by

the certainty

that he has been truly

asoyled,

and who is therefore ready

for whatever may

befall

-

not those of a hypo-

crite or one whose hysterical gaiety

masks an inner unease. Gawain does not

comprehend

his wrong

until it is pointed

out to him by

the Man in Green.

Before we are allowed to witness the fateful scene at the Green Chapel,

the poet

introduces a transitional scene in which we are made to see the hero once more in

command of himself- once more the familiar strong figure.

Arrived at a place

not far from the Chapel,

Gawain and his guide

halt for a moment,

and the guide

suggests

that should the hero prefer

the path

of flight

to that of continuing on,

one need be the wiser. The situation and Gawain's reaction to it are reminiscent

of an earlier moment in the poem when, despite

his friends' muttered hints that

prudence might

be a more fruitful course than valour,

the knight steadfastly

turns his back on Camelot. In thanking

the guide

for his offer of silence Gawain

is 'gruchyng' (2126),

and his instinctive dislike of the man for his expedient

solution to the problem

lends strength

to our impression

that the hero is once more

whole in spirit Further, neither here nor later do we sense the smug optimism

we might expect

from a man possessed

of a charm like the Girdle. Not only

does

Gawain seem to have forgotten its promised powers,

but twice he invokes God

alone as the source of any

comfort or aid he may

receive in the coming

trial. 'Ful

wel con dry3tyn schape/

His seruaunte

forto saue' (2138),

he says,

and we are

heartened at this expression

of a return to his normal perspective.

Continuing

on his way alone, the knight

arrives at what can be described only

as the most unimpressive perilous chapel

in romance

-

it is 'nobot an olde caue'

(2 82).

There is humour in this anticlimactic aspect

of the place

where the hero is to

undergo

his final and greatest trial,

and the humour is reinforced by

Gawain's

unconscious delivery

of a perfect oxymoron:

'Hit is be

corsedest kyrk bat

euer I

com inne' (2196),

he says gravely.

But the humour is present

not merely

for the

sake of comic relief: by stressing

the thoroughly

undramatic nature of the Green

Chapel

in this fashion,

the poet

invites our comparison

of this scene with that of

the challenge

at Camelot. As a result,

we are made aware of the important

truth

that there is no necessary

connexion between the external trappings

of life's

various moments and the gravity

of those moments themselves. We see that we

cannot depend

on the sounding

of trumpets

for warning

that what we do next will

vitally

affect the shape

of our lives. Unlike the confrontation at Camelot, this

meeting

is to take place

without the inspirational setting provided by friendly

faces

and a familiar hall,

and the loneliness of the site heightens

our awareness ofjust

how

alone Gawain stands at this crucial encounter.

The scene at the Green Chapel

is one of the richest and most skilfully wrought

in all of medieval literature. It parallels

in miniature the whole progress

of the

1 The highly

moral - and rather pompous

tone in which Gawain rejects

his guide's

unethical

suggestion

is amusing

as well as reassuring. We recognize

the hero's genuine indignation,

but we

cannot help noting

the irony

of the situation: just

the morning

before this he thankfully accepted

the Green Girdle from Bertilak's wife.

9

GORDON M. SHEDD

in this scene as a sympathetic

and wise judge,'

and we unhesitatingly accept

his

pronouncement as truly befitting

the case. In so doing,

we in effect dismiss the

authority

of the code by

which Gawain has been living

and acting,

and in whose

view he would have to be considered guilty

of irreparable

and unforgivable

wrongdoing.

For it must be observed that the Man in Green's appeal

to love of

life is totally

irrelevant by

chivalric standards,

whose bases are courage

and honour,

and whose tenets are grounded

in the attempt rigorously

to subjugate

the natural

impulses

of man. The situation is ironical, because the original

motivation for the

creation of a knightly

code was just

this recognition

of man's essential nature,

coupled

with a desire to channel that nature towards behaviour most productive

of a fruitful life. Yet through

the process

of codification the original insight

has

been dimmed,

and the code has tended to become worshipped

as an end in itself.

The most dangerous

and reprehensible outgrowth

of this idolatry

is the unconscious

assumption

that through

faithful adherence to the code human perfection

possible.

As the chivalric way

of life gains

stature and as its 'virtues' become

entabulated, there attaches to it the implicit promise

that scrupulous

adherence

will produce

a perfect

man. We have seen what this loss of perspective

does to the

literature it spawns:

it creates a seemingly

endless succession of success stories.

And we have seen what this loss of perspective

does to that of the individual who

blindly

follows the code: Gawain has been looking, throughout

the poem,

for an

external, concrete enemy;

and in the process

he has shown his ignorance

of the

truth that the real enemy

is himself.

The hero does not,

of course, immediately grasp

the full significance

of the

Green Knight's pronouncement,

for he is too stunned by

the simple

revelation of

failure, as the poet effectively

shows us:

1 This deepening

and transformation of character follows naturally from Bertilak's enlargement

of function. Merely a plot device in the Beheading

Game portion

of the poem,

where he is controlled

mechanically by

the author, he appears

in this scene as a thoroughly

human figure,

and as interpreter

of the plot.

This double function is explicable

not primarily

in terms of his dual status as tool of

Morgan

and lord in his own right,

but follows from the uses to which the poet puts

him. It cannot

be argued

that the change

in character is due to disenchantment,

because the poet deliberately

leaves the Green Knight's physical state unresolved. Quite simply, this is so because the author has

no interest in the fate of Bertilak in his lesser role of plot device, and because he is fully aware of the

dangers of intruding

a solution at this point.

Not at all committed to traditional employment

of his

traditional materials, the Gawain-poet

feels no obligation

to tidy up

his plot

at the expense

of meaning.

Should he interject

the theatrics of disenchantment at this crucial moment in the work,

the meaning

ef the whole piece

would be dissipated by

external spectacle,

and Sir Gawain would degenerate

into

just

another tale of adventure.

2 The contest between Gawain and the Man in Green can be viewed,

in symbolic terms,

as a

struggle

between the civilized and natural aspects

of human nature. This point

has been made

effectively by

William Goldhurst in 'The Green and the Gold: the Major

Theme of Sir Gawain and

the Green Knight', College English, 20 (1958), 61-5. Goldhurst states that gold

in the poem (the colour

most used in descriptions

of Gawain) symbolizes

the refined, sophisticated values and actions of man;

this is contrasted with the greenness of the Green Knight, suggestive of man's primitive, sensual,

emotional side. Goldhurst is too concerned to prove the juxtaposition

of these symbols

in the work,

however, and in the process slights their dramatically antagonistic position throughout

the poem.

Human nature does partake of both green and gold, but Gawain's blindness to this truth is signified

by his insistence, until the moment of revelation, upon regarding the Green Knight as his sworn

enemy.

In adopting

the Green Girdle as a reminder of his failure, the hero symbolically adopts

that part

of his being

which he had formerly

refused to acknowledge.

The meeting

at the Chapel

underscores the point

that man cannot and should not deny part

of himself, nor consider the 'natural

man' an enemy,

but recognize

the complex

nature to which he is heir, and strive to achieve a balanced

and complementary relationship

between its parts.

The

Meaning

of

'Sir

Gawain

and the Green

Knight'

Pat ober stif mon in study

stod a gret whyle;

So agreued

for greme,

he gryed with-inne,

Alle be blode of his brest blende in his face,

Pat al he schrank for schome bat be schalk talked. (2369)

When he bursts into speech

it is with a violence and intensity completely foreign

to our conception

of his character,

and we realize that this intemperate

outburst

is born of Gawain's sudden exposure

for the first time to the meaning

of what he

has done. It is evidence of the poet's sensitivity

to the realities of human behaviour

that he shows his hero at first incapable

of comprehending

the larger implications

of the Green Knight's

words: in typically

human short-sighted

fashion Gawain

curses his faults and the Girdle as though they

were animate hostile powers

that had

betrayed him;

and it is not until his initial reaction has worn off that he regains

perspective enough

to say,

'Now am I fawty

&

falce, & ferde hafben euer' (2382).

This reassertion of his natural honesty prompts

the Man in Green to declare

Gawain 'polysed

of bat ply3t

&

pured' (2393).

This phrase, coupled

with the use

of the terms confessed

and penaunce, is evocative of the confessional,

and suggests

to us

that the hero's present shriving

is of much greater

worth than his earlier absolution,

because now accompanied by genuine self-knowledge.

Gawain is still very

much a human being,

and despite

his enlarged

vision cannot

yet quite

reconcile himself to the fact that he has been duped

-

and by

a woman.

His shame and wounded vanity prevent

him from accepting

the Green Knight's

invitation to return to the castle,

and it is vanity

which provokes

his tirade against

the duplicity

of females. The humour of this moment is delightfully

akin to that

in which the Nun's Priest inadvertently

blurts out 'Wommennes conseils been ful

ofte colde', and the knight's launching

into a catalogue

of exempla

so typical

medieval sermons heightens

the comic aspect

of the situation. This leavening

humour, coming

between Gawain's confession of guilt

and his acceptance

of the

Girdle in remembrance of 'be

faut & be fayntyse

of be flesche crabbed' (2435),

reminds us once again

that even the most faultless of chevaliers is only

human.

We are not to be left

-

as romance so often leaves us- with a vision of a hero

larger than life, riding unimpeachably

off into the sunset;

but rather we take from

the poem

a feeling

of having

encountered a figure

of genuine depth

and complexity,

whose appeal

is the greater

because in his finest moments he retains undeniable

traces of human limitation.

That Gawain returns to Camelot is in keeping

with the traditional romance

ending,

and serves to round out the symmetry

of the poem,

but these are incidental

factors. His return is chiefly important

as signifying

a necessary

reinvolvement

with the everyday

world of human experience

-

for life must and does go

on-

while suggesting

that never again

will he be able to accept unquestioningly

and

comfortably

the old relationships

and assumptions.

The experience

of the Green

Chapel

is over only

in terms of the physical event,

and the anguish

of Gawain

while recounting

his ordeal shows us the indelible imprint

of that experience

on his

spirit.

Like Coleridge's

Mariner 'this soul hath been alone on a wide wide sea',

and in the poem's concluding

scene is conveyed

a sense of the indefinable but

undeniable gulf

which now separates

the knight

from his peers.

This is brought

out dramatically through

the laughter

which follows his painful recital, and is

hammered home by

the searing irony

of the interpretation put

on the whole

experience by

Arthur's court. The laughter

is well-meant, intended to comfort

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