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Weiss, Victoria. “The play world and the real world: chivalry in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’.” Philological Quarterly 72(1993): 403-419.

Victoria Weiss explores the differences and similarities between games and real life in medieval literature. At the beginning of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Gawain finds himself caught in a life endangering “Cristmasse game.” Everyone in court takes the Green Knight seriously, but at the same time, Arthur makes the situation lighter by acting as if it was merely entertainment. Weiss states that “Arthur’s gambit works because noble men and women understood games or play in both ways: as a serious declaration of their status and worth, and paradoxically, as the kind of diversionary, inconsequential activity that working classes understood play to be.” Therefore, Gawain must decide how seriously he should take this game.

Arthur refuses to eat until he has seen “some ‘uncouthe tale… sum mayn mervayl’ (93-94) or some joust where ‘jopardy’ is involved, where men pit ‘lif for lif, leve uchone other, / As fourtune wolde fulsun hem / the fayrer to have’ (98-99).” Arthur’s two options are quite different in their seriousness. After the strange marvel they have witnessed of Gawain cutting off the Green Knights head, the party returns to its merriment to ignore the strange and grave happenings that have just occurred.

Weiss compares Gawain’s story with “Le Livre de Caradoc.” In this story after the Green Knight type character leaves, the court is angered and distraught at the circumstances. They are worried for the life of their knight, and in no way treat it as a game. The two stories show very different responses. In “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” the court finally seems worried and criticizes the king right before Gawain is about to begin his journey. At this point, it is of consensus that Gawain is under an obligation, and that this is no longer a game.

The initial reference of the “Cristmasse games” suggested to the people short-term amusement, not long-term consequences. Weiss states, “They clearly regard the loss of Gawain as too high a price to pay for a bit of entertainment at a feast of the sort that Arthur’s initial vow seemed to promise.” This confusion between the play aspect and the reality of the game confuses the reader throughout. The confusion between these two worlds was a staple part of chivalry. There is a definite “confusion between the genuine or authentic and the play or postured position (that) reveals the limitations of chivalry as a system which as J.J. Anderson has noted, ‘achieves its brilliance only at the cost of a distortion of natural life’.”

At this time period, play is in direct correlation with your social position and personal identification. If you do not follow through with “play promises,” you are disgraced. Gawain takes this idea very seriously, letting the game define his personal identity, so as to legitimize himself. He “ does not seem to know when he is playing a serious game and when he is playing a momentary, diversionary one.” Making Gawain’s character even more confusing is the basis of chivalry from Christianity. The act of Gawain cutting off the Green Knights head is against Christian morality. The Green Knight shows the reader that “one who fails to abide by the rules of a game is a ‘spoil sport’ but hardly a sinner.”

The element that makes this story unique is Bertilak’s, or the Green Knight’s access to magic. Those with the magical powers control the games that control life and death. Weiss says “When magicians—the ultimate players—begin to manipulate the rules and control the games, the tendency to seek out and celebrate one’s identity through participation in a world of artifice is exposed for the dangerous practice it is.” Chivalry is therefore exposed as a game that is merely a part of public performance. It is unconnected “to a moral code which demands something more than attention to public behavior.”

When Gawain returns to Arthur’s court after his encounter with the Green Knight, the fellow courtiers believe that he has fulfilled his moral obligations by “seeking, finding, and submitting to the Green Knight.” Gawain believes he has failed morally because he fell under temptation and kept the girdle. These two viewpoints are incompatible and the neither of them receives the poets approval.

The poet’s plan was to question “the authenticity of the chivalric soul.” We are than led to question; “To what extent is proper chivalric behavior real, moral behavior as opposed to public posturing? To what extent is the seriousness of aristocratic play a convenient class-distinguishing characteristic to be invoked in public surrounding when it suits one’s purpose?” To Gawain, agreeing to the terms of play is of moral imperative, no matter the treacherous terms.

The poet shows us the historical value of game play in the Middle Ages, by offering a very complex work entangled with ideas of chivalry. At the beginning of the poem, Gawain is merely participating in a game. At the end of the poem, Gawain has gone through serious moral tribulations, far past his first expectations when becoming involved. Weiss states “Gawain finds himself with a set of chivalric values which offer him no help-indeed, merely confuse him—in his quest to discover who he is and what to value.”

Weiss weaves many unique ideas of chivalry and moral attitudes in the middle ages in this article. I felt placed in the medieval mindset, understanding how the readers of the day would have understood the text. The two contrasting viewpoints of a game, whether serious or playful was extremely insightful. This was my favorite article, I felt Weiss was offering wonderful insight into what the Gawain poet wanted his readers to understand about the text.

Cassia Herndon 10/06

Whiteford, Peter. “Rereading Gawain’s five wits.” Medium Aevum 73(2004): 225-235.

Peter Whiteford begins his article by referencing A.D. Horgan, who suggests that the significance of the pentangle in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is the “symbolic expression of the poem’s idea,” “central to the understanding of the poem.” Whiteford does not believe that those before him have explained in great enough detail the meanings behind the pentangle, even though they have claimed its importance. The reader more easily deciphers three of the five pentads. Whiteford states them as; “the five wounds of Christ, the five joys of the Virgin, and the five virtues.” These are all highly debated over, with many contrasting beliefs as to the meanings.

Whiteford believes that the poet is using the pentangle to signify “Gawain’s ‘fyue wyttez’ that acknowledges the artistry and design of the poem,” and “that the phrase should be taken as referring to the inner wits, or ‘gostli’ wits, that is, to ‘the powers of the mind that process sensory information’ (MED, s.v. ‘wit’, 4 d). There is a general consensus that Gawain’s five wits are his five senses; sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Whiteford mentions R.W. Ackerman who makes a connection between Gawain’s five senses, the five wounds of Christ, and the five joys of Mary through common contextual evidence.

Ackerman associates the five senses with an individual’s tendency to sin. If this is a true connection than Gawain, who was perfect in all of these senses is an individual void of sin, which is not true. Ackerman states that Gawain’s poet “meant it to be understood that his hero was free from venial sin.” Whiteford believes that there is no way the poet would fashion one of his characters to be sinless, due to his orthodox upbringing. Whiteford believes that instead of Gawain as a sinless character, his reputation is well renowned. The main question here is of how much importance Gawain’s five senses have to do with the entirety of the story.

There are many instances throughout the text where Gawain uses the term wits in reference to how he perceives his surroundings. He appears to have more extrasensory perception rather than merely sensory perception. Whiteford states that “although the MED does record uses of ‘wits’ for which the external senses is the appropriate meaning, it is equally clear that ‘wits’ can refer to ‘the powers of the mind that process sensory information’.”

In accordance, many now believe that Gawain’s wits go beyond bodily senses, and enter into the judgmental role of the inner wit. Whiteford mentions, not in agreement, but for reference, the five inner wits that were popular in penitential and instructional literature. The list includes; will, mind, imagination, understanding, and reason. These ideas were brought to life by the revival of such classicists as Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes. Their ideas “led to a renewed interest in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the question of how the soul acquires knowledge,” and “the development of the notion of the inner wits was part of the this effort to produce a coherent doctrine of cognition.”

In the culmination of the idea, “the inner senses were seen as providing a bridge between the external senses and the intellect, or between sensory perception and abstract thought.” The theory states that there are five faculties within the three ventricles of the brain. Beginning in the first ventricle, the first faculty is communis, or common sense, the function of combining and receiving sense perceptions. The second faculty is imaginatio, or retentive imagination, which stores our combined impressions. These faculties pass to the middle ventricle where we find imaginativa, or composing imagination, which creates new images from previous images stored in our brain. The fourth faculty is aestimative, which we form judgment towards the images we have created. In the rear ventricle, there is virtus memorialis, the memory, which stores information for the faculties of the middle ventricle. Whiteford states, “The inner senses, then, act as a kind of conduit between the material world that is apprehended immediately by the senses and the human intellect which, being immaterial, cannot directly apprehend material objects.”

How this all connects with the poem eventually comes into realization. The pentangle represents the physical, social, intellectual, moral, and spiritual dimensions of its bearer, Gawain. There are two instances in which Gawain must make a decision, and they both depend upon how mentally focused he is. The first is when Gawain’s guide offers him the opportunity to turn back on his quest for the Green Knight. Gawain’s clear mindedness in this instance, helps him make the correct decision to continue. When Gawain is tempted by the Lady Bertilak his mind his confused with her beauty and sexual appeal, and he therefore is led astray to take her girdle. Gawain realizes how easily he allowed himself to be led astray, causing self-reflection on his part. This shows that Gawain is not perfect, and he even states that he is “of wyt feblest.”

This article was at first confusing, delving into philosophy and extrasensory perception. It became somewhat clearer at the end of the article, as more connections were evident. I did have to make a continual effort not to get lost, and not wonder if the author would eventually relate all of the information back to Gawain. In the end, the author did offer unique ideas that I would never have contemplated without his personal insight.

Cassia Herndon 10/06

Walls, Kathryn. “The axe in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” ANQ 16(2003): p13-19.

In Kathryn Walls, “The axe in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” there are connections between the knight’s axe and biblical references, mainly words spoken by John the Baptist. Walls first notes that the axe is the last of the Green Knight’s property mentioned, described in great detail. The Green Knight says that he will give his axe to whoever will chop off his head. After Gawain receives the axe, Arthur asks him to hang up his axe. Walls states that, “Arthur seems to want the gruesome object safely out of the way, but—metaphorically speaking—it hangs over Gawain throughout the poem.” The girdle, the pentangle, and the holly branch are easily interpreted. The axe remains somewhat of a mystery.

One interpretation recalls the medieval act of knighting, where the initiate received a blow on neck from the sword. Another interpretation recognizes that the Green Knight arrives on New Year’s Day, also the day of the Feast of Circumcision, associating the axe with the knife used by a Jewish priest. The interpretation that this article follows alludes to John the Baptists words in Matthew 3.10: “And now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees: every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down.” This is a direct reference to an axe, unlike the other more outlandish connections.

There are two reasons that medieval readers would have made a connection between this biblical text and the Green Knights axe. Walls says, “The first is an iconographical tradition according to which John’s warning is represented by either a woodcutter felling a tree with an axe, or an axe leaning against a tree or hanging from a branch.” The Green Knight carrying an axe and a branch recalls this religious tradition. The trees from John’s reference undoubtedly stand for human beings, the axe is not that different from a battle-axe. When Gawain is waiting for the second blow from the Green Knight he is thusly described as a tree, “Gawayne graythely hit bydes and glant with no member, / Bot stode style as the ston other a stubbe auther / That ratheled is in roche grounde with rotes a hundredth.” Gawain is representing the vulnerability of humankind being chopped down, just like a tree. We are all susceptible to the same fate, and stand in fear unknowing of our outcome.

John prophesizes that, like in the Old Testament, the day was soon approaching when sinners would be “cut off” and receive their eternal punishment. Gawain goes through many temptations, and eventually succumbs. He is by no means “cut off” though. With the death of Christ, humans do not receive the blow of the axe, and we receive another chance. The Green Knight only partially wounds Gawain, giving him another opportunity at life.

There are two axes mentioned in the Gawain and the Green Knight. The first is ambiguous, while the second one relates to redemption. The first axe appears threatening, and therefore can represent John the Baptists harsh beliefs of eternal damnation. Walls states, “The relationship between it and the second axe might be compared with the relationship between the Old Testament ‘types’ and their ‘antitypes’ in the New Testament.” This conclusion draws the argument together, to form a very cohesive argument.

When first reading this article I felt as if I did not want to agree with their being a strong relationship between biblical text and the Green Knight’s axe. For some reason I wanted the text to stand alone, but all literature comes from the important texts that have come before. After reexamining the article, I realized that it had already convinced me of its relevance. The connections between the Green Knight and the text of Matthew are very clear, and offer insight into what the author could have been referencing.

The strongest part about this article is that it convinces the reader based on many correlations. It acted cohesively to illustrate the relationship between two texts. At the beginning of the article, Walls gave specific examples of others viewpoints on the subject. She stated ideas, and than just as easily rebuffed them for her stronger opinion. Walls showing the reader other viewpoints in correlation with her opinion, makes for a stronger argument.

I felt it was also a wise move on Walls part to focus on one part of the story in relationship to the bible. Instead of fighting for a completely religious story, this one aspect is emphasized and made clear to the reader. Walls focus, and use of a concise argument show the reader Walls insight into the story. I first read this piece very skeptically, but was soon convinced of the writer’s religious references.

Cassia Herndon 10/06