Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir,a greatly admired alliterative poem from the north-west Midlands, dating from the second half of the 14th cent. (some authorities date it around 1375 ), the only manuscript of which is the famous Cotton Nero A. X which is also the sole manuscript of Pearl , Patience , and Cleanness . The poem is in 2,530 lines in long-lined alliterative stanzas of varying length, each ending with a ‘bob and wheel’. Most modern critics regard the four poems in the manuscript as the work of a single poet; but as far as the interpretation of this poem is concerned, the question of single authorship is largely irrelevant, so different is its subject from the three doctrinal pieces.
The story of the poem is as follows (under the headings of its four ‘fitts’, narrative divisions). Fitt 1: Arthur and his court are seated at a New Year's feast in Camelot waiting for a marvel when a...
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