Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Background

‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ is a poem of 2530 lines divided into four fits (parts). The identity of the poet is unknown, but it is possible to date the poem to the end of the fourteenth century. The text survives in a single manuscript, now held in the British Library (Cotton Nero A.x). The manuscript contains three other poems probably by the same author (‘Pearl, Patience and Cleanness’). These other poems deal with religious subjects. ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ is, by contrast, more secular with its chivalric and marvellous adventure, though all four poems do to a certain extent explore the tensions between religious and secular boundaries.

MEDIEVAL AUDIENCE

The distinctive dialect of the medieval text indicates its provenance as being somewhere in the north-west midlands of England. It is assumed that the ‘Gawain-poet’ wrote the poems for the provincial minor gentry, and perhaps even for the more noble fringes of King Richard II’s court. Thus, the medieval readers would have been accustomed to the aristocratic conventions that are depicted in the poem and the traditional genre motifs that are used throughout.

MODERN AUDIENCES

‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ remained in the single manuscript until the nineteenth century, when it was printed in an edition. It has only been within the last 50 years that the poem has attracted great critical interest and some popular interest. Critics have focused on the unique structure of the narrative, the range of potential readings that are implied in the narrative, its context within the Arthurian legends and within medieval culture, and its remarkably post-modern concerns about human nature.

The poem has also been adapted into a novel, an opera, a libretto, three films and now the present animation. Two of these films departed widely from the text to satisfy more modern concerns, with one focusing on a young man’s trials in love and combat, and the other a sword-and-sorcery fantasia. This Channel 4 animation remains faithful to more of the content of the original plot. This website focuses primarily on the Middle English text, but any adaptation is a critical reading, and therefore, the readings that the animation offers are later considered.