Frustrated readers and conventional decapitation in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.'(Critical Essay)

Recent criticism of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has emphasized the instability of signs throughout the poem. Is the host Bertilak, or the Green Knight? Is the old woman a guest of the house, or Morgan la Faye? Are the games of exchange Christmas interludes, or tests of character? Is the green lace a magical talisman, or the decoration on an axe, a mark of shame, or a mark of honour? The poem's hero is faced with a dizzying array of ideas, people, and items, each of which require explanation, and the various challenges confronted by Gawain led R. A. Shoaf to say that there is a 'crisis of interpretation' throughout the poem. (1) Even the identity of the poem's hero is open to interpretation, and many critics have remarked on the disparity between Gawain's reputation for courtly refinements and his own self-image. The members of Bertilak's court are familiar with the knight's proclivity for dalliance, and when he arrives at Hautdesert they expect that they 'Schal lerne of luf-talkyng' from their distinguished guest. (2) Indeed, much of the comedy of the latter half of the poem results from Gawain's attempts to evade the amorous reputation he earned in other tales of adventure, (3) and when the lady of the castle chastises him for not living up to her expectations, Gawain can only respond, 'I be not now he pat ze of speken.' (4)

Sir Gawain is not the only knight of the Arthurian world with a recognizable 'character'. While Arthur is the centre of the court and Guenevere is his unfaithful queen, the supporting cast is also imbued with fairly consistent characteristics: Mordred is the consummate villain, Galahad is the ideal of Christian good, Lancelot is the best lover and fighter, Kay is foul-mouthed, and Dinadan, if we want to look at minor characters, is the practical one. But perhaps none of the Arthurian knights is so set in his role as Sir Gawain, Arthur's courteous and amorous nephew. Gawain's character was established for the academic world by B. J. Whiting in an oft-cited paper, the original intention of which 'was to make a brief comment on the opening of Chaucer's Squire's Tale, a passage in which Gawain's courtesy is thrown into bold relief'. (5) What Whiting produced was an exhaustive study of Gawain's reputation for both courtesy and seduction, the 364 footnotes of which contain references to many of the medieval texts which describe Gawain excelling in those related virtues.

The encyclopaedic nature of Whiting's research might argue against a revisionist view of Sir Gawain, but just as Kay was not always a foul-mouthed oaf, (6) so Gawain was not always the model of courtly behaviour. In their earliest appearances both of these knights are heroic fighting men, but despite their changing images throughout the Middle Ages, it is Kay's reputation for a sharp tongue and Gawain's reputation for courtesy which are the starting points for many modern studies. Thomas Wright, for example, suggests that focusing on 'such issues as Gawain's reputation as the father of fine manners' is a rewarding way to teach Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (7) John Martin cites Whiting's study to support his position that 'Although in Arthurian romance the Round Table was renowned as a center of courtesy, of all Arthur's knights, Gawain was far and away the most famous for his cortaysye', and John Finlayson refers to the same study when he argues that the courtly Gawain is 'the knight known for his "daliaunce and fair langage"'. (8) Both A. C. Spearing and D. S. Brewer have also examined Sir Gawain and provided detailed analyses of the hero's adherence to the principles of courtesy. (9) It would be misleading to suggest that these studies accept a unidimensional image of Gawain as the courteous and amorous knight, but that is certainly the picture from which they begin. Larry Benson goes so far as to suggest that Gawain seems to be fighting against his own reputation throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, (10) and Arthur Lindley sees a disparity between the courteous Gawain of romance and the pentangle knight of the poem. (11) Arguing that courtesy is actually subverted, deconstructed, and transformed through the carnivalesque, Lindley begins with the assumption that the Lady (and the audience) regard 'the courtesy Gawain sees as essential to his character as a set of sporting rules and/or literary conventions'. (12)

These studies all begin with an image of Gawain as the courtly lover, and, for the most part, they ignore the long and diverse literary history that Gawain had within Arthurian traditions. Whiting, who canonized this image of Gawain, did recognize that his reputation changed over time, but he devotes only a very small paragraph to Gawain's appearances outside of romances. (13) Early Welsh texts mention Arthur's nephew and greatest knight, but it was through Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannie that Gawain was brought to a wide ...