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COPYRIGHT 1994 University of Illinois Press
By Gerald Morgan. Dublin Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1991. Pp. 173. $39.50.
Distilling the key themes of his articles on the pentangle symbol (MLR, 1979), the nature of Gawain's confession (RES, 1985), and the hunting and bedroom tableaux (MAE, 1987), Morgan offers a book-length critical study of Gawain. Calling attention to the shaping power of the Gawain-poet's historical and cultural milieu, Morgan attempts "to go beyond the text to the larger context of ideas that have informed it" (p. 11). In particular, Morgan selects scholastic philosophy, notably the ideas of Aquinas, as the intellectual/spiritual context for Sir Gawain. Such an emphasis, along with the author's rejection of arguments provided by leading Gawain scholars (Benson, Spearing), apparently suggests an innovative reading of this multivalent romance. The veneer of critical revisionism, however, is so thin that Morgan's essentially traditional interpretation of Gawain shines through. What Morgan offers, then, is a moral-religious analysis of Gawain, an assessment which repudiates poetic ambiguity and which ignores the festive spirit of play, game, and exchange pervading the "best boke of romaunce" (SGGK, 1. 2521). While the most illuminating chapters of this study--the sections dealing with the virtues of the pentangle; Gawain's "relative" perfection; and Gawain's "ignorance," "passion," and penitential response to sin--provide rich...
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