Talk:Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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Feminist interpretations
Who gives a fig about Femininst interpretation? No doubt they would also hold that Eva Braun was the real dictator in the Third Reich and that Calphurnia conquered Britain for the Romans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.172.70 (talk) 19:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Image of Pentangle
There is currently an image of a (green) pentangle in the article - I thought it might be nice to have an image of Gawain's shield as a whole, i.e. red with a golden pentangle (as below). Thoughts?

THEN þay schewed hym þe schelde, þat was of schyr goulez

Wyth þe pentangel depaynt of pure golde hwez.

Hadrian89 (talk) 16:58, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Felix Culpa Undue Weight
This was added awhile ago. I think having so much information on the views of a single scholar is WP:Undue weight and that this should be reduced to a sentence or two in the Christianity section. I'm copying the text here:


 * Felix Culpa is a Latin phrase that can be translated directly into ‘fortunate fall’ and holds religious connotations of the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, this phrase can also be applied to Sir Gawain. Felix Culpa'' implies that a sin has been made and Gawain does in fact sin and out of that sin come many good results. The fact that he sins is clearly seen when he goes to the priest to confess his sins after he received the girdle from the Lady of the castle. Whether or not he could have kept his promise to both the lord and the lady is debatable and there is a possibility that he could have kept his words. One suggestion is that he was hysterical and kept forgetting that he forgot the promise he made to the lord . He could have been so elated over the fact that he had not committed adultery with Bertilak’s wife that the promise to the lord slips his mind. It is also debatable whether or not he feels guilt at keeping the girdle a secret and the poet seems to have done this intentionally, playing with the psychology of evil and sins of omission. It can be interpreted that he does in fact have a guilty conscience in the symbolism of his garments when he last meets the Bertilak. “He wore a robe of blue” (line 1928), a colour of chastity and loyalty even though he was spending his days with the lord’s wife and did not give him all he gained that day. This is his moment of failure; the sin that brings him many benefits.


 * What is an almost direct link to the notion of a felix culpa is the “rood” (line 1949) which is another word for crucifix. The fall of Adam brought the Ultimate Redeemer who, according to the Christian tradition, saves us all from a life of damnation by dying on a cross. Christ also has strong connections with redemption, specifically from sin. The “rood” is juxtaposed against Sir Gawain’s guilt which makes his sin stand out all the more and the link to the felix culpa'' concept even more prominent.


 * As Adam was redeemed from original sin by the death of Christ on the cross so too is Gawain to be redeemed. Gawain and Adam share various similarities in that they are both striving to remain without sin and live in an exulted state . Each faults only once and each fault brings a fortunate outcome. Gawain’s fault could have been much worse, for example he could have succumbed to the lady and committed adultery. But there are three other alterations in his future that are of benefit to him. On a personal level he is able to live out his penance and lead a new life of humility . A good and gracious knight is also a humble knight and this sin does indeed humble him when he goes back to Arthur’s court. His fault also allows for the forgiveness of the Green Knight and in a way prevents him from being beheaded. Bertilak is able to forgive him and does so by not beheading him when he steps into the role of the Green Knight. Bertilak spares Gawain’s life and his sense of life’s value is increased . Lastly he gains in his spiritual development for he not only receives the Green Knight’s forgiveness but also God’s. In the Catholic faith the forgiveness of God leads to the everlasting life in Heaven and the final preservation of the body. He receives a healing and redemption and spiritual good fortune. If Gawain had not fallen then his fortunes would not have been so great; he could have, arguably, lost his life and his place in Heaven.

-- Wrad (talk) 04:52, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Cleanness or Cleanliness
The article refers to a poem Cleanliness two times. Is this a typo for the poem Cleanness (which has "Not to be confused with Cleanliness.") or were there two different poems? I was about to just fix it, or add a tag but I'll ask here instead. -84user (talk) 13:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It should say Cleanness. I think what happened is different scholars used different translations of the title, but we should be consistent. Wrad (talk) 19:47, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

✅ Ok, thanks, I have changed them. -84user (talk) 22:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Possibly broken lede text
Thought best known scripture is recorded from the 14th century, the story is one of the oldest Arthurian stories.

The above text from the lede added here does not make sense to me. What is it trying to summarise? -84user (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Gerald Morris' Squire's Tales...
Gerald Morris used this story in The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady - it is basically the original story from the perspective of a Squire...

This needs to be added to the Modern Adaptations section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.81.114 (talk) 00:03, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Copy and Paste
Why are large portions of this article just copy and pasted from the Grade Saver article on Sir Gawain? (http://www.gradesaver.com/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight/wikipedia/themes/)Surely that is against come copyright. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.243.151 (talk) 02:15, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "This content is from Wikipedia. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it." Woodroar (talk) 03:22, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you got it backwards. That site copied and pasted from here. Wrad (talk) 03:27, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Representative Poetry Online
Surely we can cite better sources for text and translation than Representative Poetry Online--and the link seems to be outdated as well. 207.93.13.145 (talk) 15:56, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070119030515/http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca:80/poem/62.html to http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/62.html

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Pentangle
We need a better image to depict Gawain's pentangle in the article, showing particularly how it is a 3D pentagram ("an endless knot") and not a flat design. I have removed the image that was adjacent to this section of the article as it incorrectly conveyed how the pentangle on Gawain's shield would have looked. The image shown in this article:

http://english12skagway2010.blogspot.com/2010/11/sir-gawain-and-pentangle.html

is much better, however I have not imported it because of copyright restrictions.

Oska (talk) 23:08, 15 August 2019 (UTC)



The adjacent linked image is from the Commons and shows the correct 'endless knot' type of pentragram. We just need to adapt it to show the right colours, and, preferably, mount it on a shield background. Oska (talk) 00:13, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I’ve made a public domain adaptation of this and added it to the article. 02:38, 10 May 2021 (UTC)--Rsjaffe (talk) 02:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Middle English "title"
It's good that the lead clarifies that "Sir Gawan and þe Grene Knyȝt" is not a title coming from the surviving manuscript tradition but rather was given by scholars later. But if this is the case, is there any reason to include the (unattested?) ME "title" in the lead at all? Moreover, is "þe Grene Knyȝt" even the most intuitive back-translation of the ModE title? The text itself seems to use "gome in þe grene" slightly more, with other phrases almost as common as "grene knyȝt" being "knyȝt in þe grene" and "grene gome". (All of these combined seem to appear in the text a total of seven times, though: I wouldn't know where to begin to establish whether the poet preferred to call the character a "knyȝt" or a "gome" overall.) Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 15:17, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I see your point. We could just drop the drop the parenthetical phrase: it doesn't add useful information. --Rsjaffe (talk) 17:05, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

"Emotion and narrative empathy"
I'm struggling with seeing the meaning or benefit brought by the subsection "Emotion and narrative empathy." The thesis that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight "follows one individual experiencing highly emotional situations" is at the very best hackneyed and at the worst descriptive of most of the narrative and poetry mediums so at to be rendered totally meaningless. The subsequent citations to "emotional contagion" cite work not within the field of literature and not even obliquely referencing the Green Knight poem.

It all seems like a (quite bland) non-sequitur and strikes me as ripe for removal.


 * I disagree. While the section isn't necessarily as well-written as it should be, the topic is certainly addressed by the first reference. The other references are a bit weaker when it comes to relating it to the topic of the article. I've found another good reference that would work here: --  rsjaffe  talk  21:16, 8 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I don't see what story this same analysis wouldn't apply to. Whether or not someone has said that the poem evokes empathy doesn't make that statement (i) remarkable, (ii) relevant, or (iii) interesting. Perhaps if it were the first such narrative to do so, but it's a description as true when applied to Homer's Odyssey as it is to last week's episode of This Is Us. OP 17:05, 25 August 2021 (EST)

"Location" and "Gawain's Journey" overlap in coverage
Thanks for adding information on location. However, it overlaps with the Gawain's Journey section. Could you please incorporate Gawain's Journey into your section to consolidate the two? I do think having a Location section, as you do, is appropriate, rather than having Gawain's Journey down in interpretations. rsjaffe 🗩 🖉 18:12, 10 December 2021 (UTC)