If ye wyl lysten this laye bot on littel while:

The Audience in Sir Gawain and The Green

Knight
Hasting G. Chen
May 27, 2016
Describing the adventure of an Arthurian knight in remote places for
temptation and fall for the challenges between life and death and between
sex and loyalty, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (hereafter SGGK ) has
always been a staple in Middle English Literature ever since its rediscovery
in nineteenth century, and, with this, a focus in modern literary criticism.
As summarized by Robert J. Blanch and Julian N. Wasserman, critics have
either used various strains of modern critical theory or cited historical context
in understanding the content of the poem.1 For example, Carolyn Dinshaw
posits the poem as a product of heterosexual culture in which normative
sexual relations are represented by heterosexuality,2 and Francis Ingledew
sees the poem as a response to Edward IIIs institution of the Order of the
Garter and his sexual deviancy.3
However, despite these innovative and helpful efforts in elucidating the
meaning of the poem, the issue of its particular literary form, a vital subject
at the core of all literary inquiry, remains largely in abeyance. In other words,
although we as modern readers get to know the work or text in the same way
like any other piece of literature printed or reproduced on paper, it is vital
for us recognize that SGGK is a narrative poem delivered by oral narration
or read from a book before an audience who may not have even learned to
read. As a starting point to explicate the difference, reader-response criticism
provides a useful means to connect the discussion in relation to the subject
1. The Current State of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight Criticism, The Chaucer
Review 27, no. 4 (1993): 40112, esp. 401.
2. A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and The
Green Knight, Diacritics 24, nos. 2/3 (1994): 20426, esp. 20809.
3. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and the Order of the Garter (Notre Dame, IN: U
of Notre Dame P, 2006), 6566.

matter of the composition. As Stanley Fish argues in his seminal work on the
reader in Paradise Lost,4 a poem that also deals with the issue of Temptation
and Fall, the poet challenges and frustrates the fallen reader of this latter-day
epic so that the experience of reading becomes a dramatic reenactment of
Temptation and Fall and constitutes, for this reason, a process of education
for such reader into realizing his or her fallen status. The reader, thus,
[by falling] before the lures of Satanic rhetoric displays again the
weakness of Adam, and his inability to avoid repeating that fall
throughout indicates the extent to which Adams lapse has made
the reassertion of right reason impossible.5
In a similar way and citing Fish, Ingledew believes that SGGK
surely designs that the reader share Gawains disorientation at
[the poems denouement]: when it forgets the religious angle of
vision spelled out in Gawains portrait, this is not only to mimic
Gawains religious limitations but to induce a forgetting in the
reader, so that he or she is as surprised as Gawain to discover his
or her interpretive and evaluative orientation badly mistaken.6
Both for Gawains disparity between his religiosity and actual response in
the face of certain death and for the continuous shift of settings and centers
of consciousness in SGGK, this can be a largely valid observation.7 However,
4. Suprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost (Berkeley, CA: U of California P,
1967).
5. Ibid., 38.
6. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and the Order of the Garter, 18485.
7. At this point it may be necessary to remember that, for its liveliness in engaging
the reader with the themes of the Temptation and Fall, two seminal Christian events,
reader-response criticism has always been an importance force in modern criticism of the
poem, even without referring to the theoretical denomination or to Fish. For example,
Wendy Clein sees the reader of SGGK enjoying the poems indeterminate structure
suggested by the unanswered moral question raised by the poet (Concepts of Chivalry in
Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (Norman, OK: Pilgrim, 1987), esp. 128, 4), an opinion
echoed by C. Stephen Finley, who claims that the very excess of conclusiveness leads to the
strange indeterminacy of our readings (Endeles Knot: Closure and Indeterminacy in Sir
Gawain and The Green Knight, Papers on Language & Literature 26 (1990): 44558, esp.
448). Most notably, citing numerous historiographical sources of Gawain, a figure quick to
behead others and walk off triumphantly, Richard J. Moll argues that A knowledgeable
audience, which shares an image of Gawain drawn from historical sources, is also [like
Arthurs court] surprised by the complete reversal of its own expectations, and, as a
result, readers could not help but be surprised that they have misinterpreted Gawain and
the setting in which he finds himself (Frustrated Readers and Conventional Decapitation
in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Modern Language Review 97, no. 4 (2002): 793

how such a fascinating story creates genuine and serious recognition for the
reader deserves a closer scrutiny, especially in view of the jovial and rather
uncaring response from Arthurs court for Gawains story. For example, it
has to be noted that, like Adam fondly overcome with female charm8 in
accepting Eves offer of the forbidden fruit, Gawain also fails to resist the
ladys temptation with the green girdle, a gift that he may not take without
giving back to the host later the same day. Thus Gawain himself construes
his fall (or exculpates his active responsibility) before Bertilak, For so was
Adam in erde with one bygyled.9 Just like Adam, the original virtuous
human being, who prefigures the reader with his fall, so does Gawain, the
quintessential English knight, for the original and subsequent courtly audience. Other than being a religious doctrine, the concept of fortunate fall or
felix culpa becomes part of the rich tapestry of cultural memory that the
Gawain-poet taps into in composing the Arthurian romance for the original
aristocratic audience particularly congenial to the poet.10 As will be shown
below, this constitutes a test of interpretation and morality in ambiguity,
irony, dilemma, and uncertainty, in a similar way that he devises Gawain to
undergo a fatal adventure. Thus, I will discuss how such test unravels itself
in the poem As hit is breved in the best boke of romaunce (2521).
Before delving into the content of the poem proper, it may be interesting
to consider how such a book is constructed. Like the other poems from the
Pearl Manuscript, the poem is collected by and named after the antiquarian
Robert Cotton, this modest-looking manuscript fortunately survived a big
fire in 1731 and had remained forgotten for nearly a century. Not until
1839 was the poem first published by Sir Frederic Madden in a collection of
Gawain romances, thus kicking off the modern development of the book.11
As Gawain is the predominant English figure for English Arthurian romance,
this arguably sets up the stage for its establishment as a centerpiece in English
Literature as a national discipline and, with the development and expansion
802, esp. 801). Likewise, John M. Ganim has observed for the poems preoccupation
on perception the reader is always correcting himself [and] quick to take the blame
in finding out his expectation thwarted (Disorientation, Style, and Consciousness in Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, PMLA 91, no. 3 (1975): 37684, esp. 383, 378).
8. Paradise Lost, ed. Alastair Fowler (London: Routledge, 2013), 9.999.
9. Paul Battles, ed., Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2012), 2530 (hereafter cited as SGGK). All citations of the poem are to this edition.
10. As J. R. R. Tolkien famously surmises, this author had a nobility to which Chaucer
scarcely reached (Introduction, in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir
Orfeo, trans. J. R. R. Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), 1324, esp. 17). For the
poets religious function, see Watson.
11. For details see Thorlac Turville-Petre, The Alliterative Revival (Woodbridge: Brewer,
1977), 12629.

of British Empire, part of the imperial project.

The poem opens with a brief summary of the British foundation myth
Sithen the sege and the assaut was sesed at Troye,
The borgh brittened and brent to brondes and askes,
The tulk that the trammes of tresoun ther wroght
Was tried for his tricherie, the trewest on erthe.
Hit was Ennias the athel, and his highe kynde,
That sithen depreced provinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneghe of al the wele in the west iles:
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swythe
With gret bobbaunce that burghe he biges upon fyrst,
And nevenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat
Ticius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes up homes,
And fer over the French flod Felix Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settes
wyth wynn
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi sythes has wont therinne,
And oft bothe blysse and blunder
Ful skete has skyfted synne.12
While this frame story of Troy seems distant, remote, and irrelevant, it does
suggest the historical or historiographical origin of the romance that the narrator aims to portray in the poem. Based on numerous writings of and about
history, such origin arguably forms another source of cultural memory shared
by the narrator and the audience. As Sylvia Federico notes Troys status as
a liminal location between history and fantasy for the English in the late
fourteenth century or the contemporary audience of the poem,13 this opening does suggest that the reader is suspended from the very beginning of the
poem in the duality between fiction and reality.14 Furthermore, the reference
to Troy is particularly pertinent in such framework of British historiography as London was, by account of Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum
Britanniae, believed to be erected by the exiled Trojans as New Troy or Tri12. SGGK, 119.
13. New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003), 3.
14. For a more detailed discussion of historiographical influence on the portrayal of
Gawain in SGGK, see Moll, Frustrated Readers and Conventional Decapitation in Sir
Gawain and The Green Knight, 795801.

novantum.15 Thus, by showing the movement of powers or translatio imperii

identified with the Trojan descendants going from Troy, Rome, through Tuscany, Lombardy, and eventually to Britain, the narrator also reminds the
audience of the vicissitude in the scene of history. It is by this matter of history and sense of vicissitude in human events, with its explosive mixture of
peace, conflicts, joy, and grief, that the narrator appeals to the audience who
know the stories and establishes a common ground for communication. Thus,
in modern parlance, the poet thus taps into certain collective consciousness
arising from a sense of imagined community of a distinctively English nationhood fer over the French flod. As Emile Durkheim explicates, collective
consciousness can be defined as [t]he totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with
a life of its own passed on by individuals link[ing] successive generations
to one another.16 According to Benedict Anderson, a nation is an imagined
political community formed in the minds of each [member who] lives the
image of their communion,17 a concept which, along with Durkheims collective consciousness, I see as an important basis for the perceived audience
of SGGK. As Patricia Clare Ingham explicates, with this briefest allusion
. . . the poet figures France as an adjective marker for a distance crossed, not
itself a crucial player in British history given the Hundred Years War in
progress.18
Furthermore, with the ever-changing centers of power come rulers of ambiguous moral standing. First, leading the remaining Trojans away from
the burning city, Aeneas, who for the many conquests of his own and of his
noble descendants, is somehow referred as a traitor of his home country. Although, as Federico has correctly pointed out, there is a logical relationship
between traitor and founder,19 such a dubious portrayal of the founding father does suggest a very problematic source of the people and nations that
result thereof. This ambiguity is further heightened with the claim that Aeneas Was tried for his treacheries, the trewest on erthe, as any member
of the audience who tries ascertain the moral standing of his original would
find attempts frustrated and ending in an irresolvable bifurcation between
treachery and loyalty. With Romulus and his founding of Rome one is also re15. John Clark, Trinovantum: The Evolution of a Legend, Journal of Medieval History
7 (1981): 13551, esp. 135.
16. The Division of Labor in Society, trans. W. D. Halls (Free Press, 1984), 3839.
17. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised ed. (Verso, 1991), 7.
18. Sovereign Fantasies: Arthurian Romance and the Making of Britain (Philadelphia:
U of Pennsylvania P, 2001), 115.
19. New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages, 34.

minded of his sibling rivalry and his murder of Remus at the starting point of
the imperial exploits, events that cast a shadow of doubt of Romulus With
gret bobbaunce.20 Finally, with felix Brutus, the founder of Britain, one
not only see the unfortunate deaths of his parents caused by him, an event
that forced Brutus to go on exile in the first place,21 but also, for this irony
and ambiguity, perceive the idea of felix culpa in the happy foundation of
Britain happening in the most unfortunate circumstances.
Nevertheless, by reviewing these ambiguities, ironies, and dark undercurrents in these glorious events and leaders in the past, the narrator further
sets up his authority and authorship (as cognates) before his audience, possibly in imitation or homage of his historiographical predecessors more than
of his Continental forebears (like Chretian de Troyes and The Vulgate Cycle)
with which the genre of medieval romance is more closely associated. Such
a translatio studii and deliberate choice not only reflect the anti-French sentiment of the time,22 but also serve to situate the subject of Arthur back to
its historiographical roots for their common element of ferlyes, a word that
acts like wonder and signifies the variable nature in human events.23
With this the narrator focuses on the court of Arthur and proclaims that
Forthi an aunter in erde I attle to schawe,
That a selly in syght summe men hit holden,
And an outtrage awenture of Arthurez wonderez.
If ye wyl lysten this laye bot on littel while,
I schal telle hit as tit, as I in toun herde,
with tonge,
As hit is stad and stoken
In stori stif and stronge,
With lel letteres loken,
In londe so has ben longe.24
In other words, the poet aims to tell an actual adventure that makes some of
the audience consider it to be a wonder and an extraordinary event, even by
20. MED glosses the word bobbaunce as Display of armed might or prowess; also,
pride, arrogance, insolence, or fierceness (of a knight). In view of the poem as a whole,
this is a surprisingly pertinent concept as far as the characters are involved.
21. For a detailed description of these fortunate or unfortunate events for Felix Brutus in historiography, see Theodore Silverstein, Sir Gawain, Dear Brutus, and Britains
Fortunate Founding: A Study in Comedy and Convention., Modern Philology 62, no. 3
(1965): 196202.
22. For a detailed discussion of the development of Arthurian romance, see Sandra Pierson Prior, The Pearl Poet Revisited (New York: Twayne, 1994), 99100.
23. SGGK, 23, 16.
24. SGGK, 2736.

the Arthurian standards. Such claim not only results to a curious, ambiguous, and yet also inextricable blend of reality and myth, but also suggests
a possible critical distance or split between the narrator and the audience.
With such precarious anxiety for breaking away from his audience, the narrator begs his audience to listen to this lay or story of love or adventure
transmitted both by word of mouth and with let letteres loken, a phrase
that shows the alliterative style of the poem,25 denotes the sense of empowerment in written records,26 testifies to the truthfulness in the words,27
embodies the survival and revival of Anglo-Saxon poetic practice,28 or, even,
for such professed loyalty (lel), establishes a regular metric and national
pattern for the reader (or audience) to follow and give credence to.29 Despite this multitude of interpretations, one may also surmise that they could
prefigure what J. L. Austin defines to be performative utterances or speech
acts.30 In other words, by uttering these words in appealing to the audience
for its patience and participation, the narrator in effect by his speech (or at
least by his speech-like declaration in telling the story) attempts to make the
poem in its alliterative style, written form, truthfulness, and by such poetic
output to achieve an immediate and direct sense of shared identity in terms
of nationality or familiar poetic pattern. Whether the narrator can succeed
in these aims, however, depends on whether the audience chooses to listen
to the story. As long as it takes up the challenge in listening to an actual
adventure (aunter in erde) that could be qualified as a wonder,31 the narrator can thus open up a performative and liminal space between history and
fantasy in which he can deliver the story to the audience and bring it to the
challenge.
From this possible audience participation, be it a literary pretense32 or a
25. J. R. R. Tolkien, E. V. Gordon, and Norman Davis, eds., Sir Gawain and The Green
Knight, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1967), 72.
26. Jason M. Herman, With Lel Letteres Loken: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Line 35., Notes and Queries 57, no. 3 (2010): 313.
27. P. J. Frankis, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 35: with lel letteres loken.,
Notes and Queries 8, no. 9 (1961): 330.
28. Ralph Hanna, Alliterative Poetry, in The Cambridge History of Medieval English
Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999), 488512.
29. See Marie Borroff, Traditions and Renewals: Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, and Beyond
(New Haven: Yale UP, 2003), 16374; John M. Bowers, An Introduction to the Gawain
Poet (Gainsville: UP of Florida, 2012), 19.
30. Performative Utterances, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed.
Vincent B. Leitch (New York: Norton, 2001), 143042; How to Do Things with Words,
2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976), esp. 6, 40.
31. In Austins terms, this means that the narrators statement is happy, felicitious, or
invoked in an appropriate circumstances (ibid., 6).
32. J. A. Burrow, Ricardian Poetry: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain Poet

genuine consciousness of an addressed public,33 arises the inevitable wandering process the audience must undergo. Despite my explication for the
performative utterance created by the narrator with the audience, as Fish
says of the readers admiring response to Satans rhetoric display in Hell,
A Christian failure need not be dramatic; if the reader loses himself in the workings of the speech even for a moment, he places
himself in a compromising position. He has taken his eye from its
proper object the glory of God and the state of his own soul
and is at least in danger.34
Although equating Miltons Satan with the poet for their common rhetoric
prowess in leading the audience or reader astray seems to be one patronizing
or even uncharitable stance of criticism, especially in view of the narrators
purpose in uniting with his audience, in view of the story of SGGK, the audience, following the narrator and engaging with his speech act, now wanders
in the narrative action. This arguably results to the readers lapse or error
in interpretation.35 This wandering action thus goes from the spiritual focus
expected of a Christian corresponds with the ensuing description of Camylot upon Krystmasse With rych revel oryght, and rechles merthes,36 a
scene for all its outward and benign resplendence betrays its recklessness or
lack of proper concern for the solemn occasion. Praiseful epithets like [t]he
most kyd knightes under Krystes selven and [t]he hapnest under heven
further emphasize such stark contrast and put the supposedly high status
of Arthurs court into strong doubt.37 However, amidst these tiny signs,
with such descriptions of feast and enjoyment in Arthurs youthful court,
the narrator virtually leads his audience astray into a world of sumptuous
mirth and jollity somehow resembling the early court of Edward III or that
of his successor, Richard II.38 At any rate, for the audience, such a peculiar
(New Haven: Yale UP, 1971), 13.
33. John M. Ganim, Style and Consciousness in Middle English Narrative (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1983), 151.
34. Fish, Suprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost, 12.
35. According to OED Online, the word error can also denotethe action of roaming
or wandering; hence a devious or winding course, a roving, winding. Also, A. C. Spearing
sees Gawain as a interpreter of his own experience as a result of Morgan le Fays enmity
for Guinevere or her stated intent of the whole affair of Green Knight (The Gawain-Poet:
A Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970), 22930).
36. SGGK, 37, 40.
37. SGGK, 51, 56.
38. Whether SGGK is composed in Edwards or Richards reign remains a topic of perennial debate. For a discussion of SGGK in terms of its relevance to Edward IIIs (rather
than to Richards) court see Ingledew, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and the Order

commingling of the familiar and unfamiliar constitutes an experience of the

uncanny,39 whose effect, according to Sigmund Freud, is often and easily
produced when the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced,40
exactly as the narrator has declared in the first place.41
Perhaps for this very reason or intention, whatever looks familiar and
praiseworthy in Arthurs court for the audience will be thrown into strong
relief with the superior Other, resulting another experience of uncanny. As
Jeffrey J. Cohen incisively observes, [for] the lack of a firm boundary between manhood and monstrousness [in the poem], the giant [Green Knight]
is not a force to be overcome and banished . . . but rather an interior Other,
foundational rather than antithetical to chivalric identity.42 Facing such a
formidable challenger and a perfect (and uncanny) example of knighthood,
the young Arthur and his knights are also to be left utterly dumbfounded
in the face of the mature Green Knight. With the ecphrasis or verbal description of his visual features and accouterment going through nearly three
stanzas, the audience, just like those onlookers at Arthurs court while gazing at this aghlich maister, is likewise mesmerized in wonder, marvel, and
A swoghe sylence . . . / As al were slypped upon slepe.43 As Paul Battles
points out that this and other elaborate descriptions of material culture in
the poem reflect the major concerns of late-fourteenth-century aristocracy,44
one can clearly see that reflection from the amazed onlookers of Arthurs
court.
Partly explaining the reason for coming and partly in response to this
amazement, The Green Knight reiterates the fame of Arthurs court for its
renown in valiance, courage, and courtesy and declares his peaceful intention
albeit defiantlyfor a gomen in testing such fame against reality to see if
thou be so bold as alle burnes tellen.45 Faced with such verbal challenge or
of the Garter, 93104. For a discussion for the Ricardian cultural influence on the poem,
see Michael J. Bennett, The Historical Background, in A Companion to the GawainPoet, ed. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), 7190,
esp. 8790.
39. Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2003), 1.
40. Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism,
ed. Vincent B. Leitch (Norton, 2001), 92952, esp. 946.
41. SGGK, 2729.
42. Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages (Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1999),
159.
43. SGGK, 136, 24344.
44. Introduction, in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, ed. Paul Battles (Broadview,
2012), 1126, esp. 24.
45. SGGK, 25863, 273, 272.

test, Arthur offers batayl bare or open fight.46 Against this suggestion The
Green Knight returns the favor and challenges Arthur and his fellow berdles
childrez, to a gomen involving an exchange of blows.47
Thrown in the midst of these verbal exchanges and devoid of the narrators intercession between the two sides, the audience now faces again an
even greater silence of the original audience of the Green Knight in wonder
or fear, in expectation, apprehension, and even meditation of the uncertain
nature of this gomen, an idea that can take on meanings like sport competition, battle, or even verbal exchange. Whether Arthur has misinterpreted
the Green Knights call for a game (and by so doing unnecessarily escalated
the situation), he seems to have sufficiently responded to this taunting visitor who challenges the value of courage his court stands for.48 However,
this leaves no room for cortaysye, a concept poignantly and ironically first
referenced as the reason of wonder and silence among Arthurs court (246)
and then cited by the Green Knight as the source of Arthurs renown.49
Such inherent conflict within virtue ethics (where two values are in conflict
with each other) inevitably forces the audience to think whether Arthur has
chosen well in this balancing art between peace and war, a crucial and relevant topic in Ricardian England where challenges to kingly authority were a
commonplace.50
Given this delicate and volatile environment, the problems arising from
obedience, royal prerogative, and kings questionable judgment played out in
the scene may certainly have some relevance for Ricardian audience, especially in view of Arthurs poor judgement in reciprocating the Green Knights
alleged foolishness: Not only Arthur, though saying Hathel, by heven, thyn
asking is nys, / And as thou foly has frayst, fynde thee behoves! and claiming the foolishness of the Green Knights proposal, accepts the challenge
anyway; later when seeing Gawain off to meet his fate, people would also
sayde sothly or quietly questioned the kings judgment that Who knew
ever any kyng such counsel to take / As knyghtes in cavelacions on Cryst46. SGGK, 27678.
47. SGGK, 280, 283, 285300.
48. SGGK, 31112. As J. J. Anderson says, although [Arthur] may be criticized from
one point of view for his youthful impetuosity, he acts with directness and courage, and
from the best motives (The Three Judgments and the Ethos of Chivalry in Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight, The Chaucer Review 24, no. 4 (1990): 33755, esp. 341).
49. SGGK, 246, 263.
50. For a more detailed accounts of the events that lead to the opposition to Richards
rule by his favorites, in particular the Wonderful Parliament in November 1386 and the
Merciless Parliament in February 1388, see Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven: Yale UP,
1997), 155204.

10

masse gomnes?51 With Gawain asking for the task, despite his courteous
manner and humility in doing so, there is little doubt that his king fully
expects him to dispense with the unwanted visitor and the enemy of the
state:
Kepe the, cosyn, quoth the kyng, that thou on kyrf sette
And if thou redes hym right, redly I trowe
That thou shal byden the bur that he shal bede after!52
Although Victoria L. Weiss has incisively observed that Gawain is under no
obligation whatsoever to behead him and to make the game a deadly one,53 it
would be probably problematic (if not outright treasonous) by not following
the suggestion of his king in performing this grisly business that may forestall
any retaliation.54 Arthurs misjudgment quickly blows back when people find
the Green Knight does not succumb to Gawains beheading. With blood all
over his body, the Green Knight reminds Gawainsupposedly in the same
way that the audience of the poem may now hereof the promise in a
truly bloodcurdling manner.55 Not only such a scene has moved Gawain and
Arthur, it has also probably shaken the belief in quite a few member of the
audience who might have known Gawain from other historiographical sources
that portray Gawain as the one who beheads the enemy and escapes from
the deed.56
51. SGGK, 32324, 673, 68283.
52. SGGK, 34361, 37274.
53. Victoria L. Weiss, Gawains First Failure: The Beheading Scene in Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight, The Chaucer Review 10, no. 4 (1976): 36166, esp. 364.
54. As with other deaths ordered with by the king, a direct order of murder is ofter
nowhere to be seen. Notable cases include the deaths of Thomas Becket (who in his
capacity as Archbishop of Canterbury challenged Henry II), Thomas of Woodstock (who
headed the Lords Appellant in removing the kings favorites), and eventually the abdicated
Richard II (who was a symbolic threat to the new and usurping king Henry IV). For details
for the later two events pertinent to Ricardian England see Saul, Richard II, 37879, 424
26.
55. SGGK, 447.
56. As Moll points out, since Gawain, who has appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae and in subsequent chronicles, beheads Quintilianus, the emperors
nephew who taunts the Britons as having more prowess in boasts and threats than courage,
and rides off in triumph (795801), this dramatic reversal or peripeteia surprises an audience all the more for finding out these chronicles have misinterpreted Gawain and the
setting in which he finds himself (801) and portends Gawains fateful adventure (Frustrated Readers and Conventional Decapitation in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight,
795, 801). In other words, despite the narrators claim for the storys origin (SGGK,
3136), this surprising turn of events actually further challenges the preconception of an
unsuspecting audience familiar with Gawain from chronicles and romances.

11

In addition, as Arthur comments this be such a wonder that allows him

start eating (471, 47475), such reversal also ironically satisfies Arthurs desire for marvel or battle, without which Arthur would not start eating on the
special occasion.57 Coming from the difference in the perception of Arthur
and the audience, this dramatic irony manifests both satisfaction and surprise that exceeds expectation. The result is thus yet another ambiguity in
the character of Arthur, who, as mentioned before, may have his knights in
mindless jeopardy for his enjoyment and bravado.
With Gawain leaving his fellow knights to meet his fate, the audience in
effect is led to experience and appreciate first-hand his preparation for the
adventure ahead, including the laborious and ironic arming and mounting,
particularly with his shield featuring the highly symbolic pentangle.58 In this
episode of ecphrasis, the poet builds up the visual image of Gawain before
the audience suggests before it the spiritual significance of the quest. In
other words, for Gawains expected physical suffering, his actual challenge
is spiritual, especially as the narrator prepares the audience with a fairly
high expectation of Gawain. With such focus on Gawains character the
narrator further leads the audience into close contact with Gawains wandering through countrayes straunge in peryl and payne and plytes ful
harde.59 Suspended in this harsh untamed natural (and in some way also
supernatural) environment and at the Christmas Eve, the narrator prepares
the audience with the amazing and expected return of human civilizations
as Gawain expresses his religious sentiment in search for a place for lodging and mass befitting the occasion. Suddenly (if not out of nowhere) there
is A castel the comlokest that ever knyght aghte,60 resulting once more
an uncanny feeling that blends familiar and perhaps even the best possible
example of religious and courtly institutions in this very remote corner far
away from the Arthurian world. Not only the castle is described as the most
comely, its porter also behaves in the most courteous way.61 Such an environment thus irrevocably undermines the audiences expectation for Arthurs
court as The hapnest under heven for its lack of proper management or
courtesy, but also, more importantly, compromises the judgment in Gawain,
who is both literally and metaphorically disarmed, with good clothes, nice
food, and, in particular, wyn in his hed that wende.62
With this, the courtly audience, in a manner not unlike Gawain, is led
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.

SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,

47475, 9199.
566618, 61965.
713, 733.
767.
81314.
56, 86061, 900.

12

to appreciate the surprising and superior quality in Bertilaks court. Before this and with diminished judgment in relaxed state, Gawain, is now
unarmed, besieged, and challenged by the host and his knights so much so
that his identity is laid bare for all to see.63 Thus, in a manner that reprises
the Green Knights praise of the courtesy of Arthurs court , Gawain now
faces scrutiny for display of good manners and noble speech and is put up as
a paragon of luf-talkyng.64 Against this perfect image of medieval knighthood appears Bertilaks lady,
Ho was the fayrest in felle, of flesche and of lyre
And of compas and colour and costes, of alle other,
And wener then Wenore, as the wyye thoght.65
the audience, gaining access to Gawains thoughts in admiration, is likewise
disorientated. Compared to Guinevere, who was hitherto described as The
comlokest to discry (81), she not only puts the narrators statement in
doubt, but also serves to detract the audience away from Guinevere (and even
Mary) in wonder, in the similar manner that the lady detracts Gawain aways
from his due observance to his temporal and spiritual sovereign ladies, namely
Guinevere and Mary, with the former superseded and the latter sinking into
oblivion. This jeopardizes Gawains courtly virtues, especially in the presence
of an olde auncian wyf taking precedence at the table, as he enjoys the
young ladys company.66 Thus, in admiration for this court and the lady,
the narrator continues the iconoclasm for Arthur and his court, and for the
accepted opinion thereof in the audience familiar with the story.
In the same way that the narrator inveigles the audience into the realm
of pleasant words
Bot yet I wot that Wawen and the wale burde
Such comfort of her compaynye caghten togeder
Thurgh her dere daylaunce of her derne wordes,
Wyth clene, cortays carop closed fro fylthe
That hor plat was passande uche prynce gomen,
in varyes.67
With Gawain accepting the hosts proposal to stay and to engage in a game
of exchange (110609), the audience experiences the alternating scenes of the
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.

SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,

904.
263, 91617, 927.
94345.
1001.
101015.

13

hosts hunting in the wild and the ladys conquest of Gawain in his bedroom.
This leads to the famous juxtaposition between hunting and seduction, two
gentlemanly activities for enjoyment and pursuit. With this contrast the
narrator sets the stage for Gawains gradual and helpless fall amidst an admiring audience. Although the narrator emphasizes painstakingly the purity
of such enjoyment in words, such report, for its appeal to the audience who
enjoy the company of the opposite sex, not only suggests Gawains precarious
situation, but also tempts the audience with dere daylaunce of her derne
wordes with their possible sexual connotations.
For this reason, the lady criticizes Gawain for not even asking a kiss and
doubts his name for such neglect of good manners (12961301), and such
criticism on the next day develops into the ladys schoolmasterish instruction
on kissing and courtesy, namely that Where-so countenaunce is couthe,
quikly to clayme / That bicumes uche a knyght that cortaysy uses.68 Then,
undeterred at Gawains reservation, the lady even suggests the use of force
Yif any were so vilanous that yow debay wolde,69 making Gawain to say
that such compulsion (as well as the result thereof) is deemed ignoble.70 To
the audience who hears this delicate and dangerous game of verbal exchange,
such response may not only be a clever riposte on Gawains part in using the
ladys emphasis of good manners as defense, but also in a larger context of
the poem a reflection of Gawains predicament, as the whole affair stated
with the Green Knights challenge, Arthurs heavy-handed response, and,
most of all, Gawains own use of violence at the suggestion of Arthur. With
these examples of force and violence observed in Arthurs court, Gawains
answer could very well turn against himself, resulting yet another criticism
on Arthurs court for its mindless and careless exercise of violence.
Moreover, for the audience of SGGK in the midst of two games that
metamorphosize and exchange between each other, such a claim further dramatizes the problematic nature of game for its curious and ineluctable combination of legality and violence. In the same manner, the lady continues her
assault and challenge on Gawain, who is doing his best in defending
Thus hym frayned that fre and fondet hym ofte,
Forto haf wonnen hym to woghe, what-so scho thoght elles;
Bot he defended hym so fayr that no faut semed,
Ne non euel on nawther halve, nawther thay wysten
68.
69.
70.
with

SGGK, 149091.
SGGK, 1497.
Bot threte is unthryvande in thede ther I lende / And uche gift that is geven not
goud wylle (14991500).

14

bot blysse.71
This is not only a depiction of warfare juxtaposed with the hosts hunting
for the wild and dangerous boar, but also a portrayal of temptation, and
thus a far more serious test on Gawains spiritual purity, with much graver
consequences should he fail.72 As confirmed by the host, who has said to
Gawain at the end of the day that For I haf fraysted thee twys, and faythful
I fynde thee, this exchange not only represents a test for Gawains true
nature under duress, but also suggests that the host, like the audience, also
monitors and evaluates Gawains performance.73 According to OED Online,
frayne, a transitive verb also appearing in the passage above, refers to the
activity in mak[ing] inquiry of (a person) about (something). Although
it is true that in either of the circumstances Gawain is being asked about
something in return, we can see Gawain himself as actually the very thing
being interrogated.
On the third and final day of the game of exchange, with the host out for
hunting the fox, the lady tries her hardest to seduce Gawain. Troubled by
the nightmare for the terrifying prospect for meeting the Green Knight and
probably his death, Gawain seems overjoyed at seeing the lady to his rescue
and unaware of the greater danger accompany her timely appearance:
He sey hir so glorious and gayly atyred,
So fautles of hir fetures and of so fyne hues,
Wight wallande joye warmed his hert.
With smothe smylyng and smolt thay smeten into merthe,
That al was blis and bonchef that breke hem bitwene,
and wynne.
Thay lanced wordes gode,
Much wele then was therinne;
Gret perile bitwene hem stod,
Nif Mare of hir knyght mynne.74
With such glad feelings within Gawain, the pleasurable atmosphere, and
particularly the reference to the Virgin Mary as the source of Gawains virtues
and protection, the audience is brought to know and experience the real and
71. SGGK, 154953.
72. For this reason, Carolyn Dinshaw speculates that if Gawain had succumbed fully to
the ladys seduction and if he had honored the terms of his promise to the lord he would in
fact have had to have sex with the lord (Dinshaw, A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality
and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, 207).
73. SGGK, 1679.
74. SGGK, 176069.

15

serious danger that Gawain is now in the midst of his glad feeling in talking
with the lady. At the same time, despite the danger, the lady exhibits almost
the most irresistible attraction and the only source of consolation for Gawain
in the face of certain death. Thus the audience is put before the dilemma
between seeing the scene as certain enjoyment and impending doom.
With the ladys offer with the green girdle, Gawain is cornered into the
fateful choice for a supposed life away from certain death. Such a choice of
this life over afterlife represents not only compromises Gawains Christian
virtues, but also undermines his loyalty to the host in service of his own life
and of the lady. With her request for Gawain to lelly layne fro hir lord,75
the audience has to meditate all manners of duplicity under this supposed
promise for loyalty, because Gawain cannot possibly be faithful, either, as
the lady orders, in hiding the girdle from her lord, or, as he has promised
with the host, in surrendering his gaining for the day. With Gawains request
to receive absolution of sin before supposed death, the audience fully experiences the incongruity and disparity between Gawains outward religiosity for
the world after and ongoing duplicity in this world, despite that the priest
asoyled hym surely and sette hym so clene / As domesday schulde haf ben
dight on the morn.76 Moreover, this statement, for the irony beneath its
impeccable religious veneer, not only condemns Gawain, but also, for his
symbolic importance, embodies an implicit criticism for the audience who
rely on religious establishment or ceremonies for maintaining their spiritual
purity, when in fact the two ideas diverges. A particularly poignant and sensitive contemporary case in point is that Richard, for his belief in the divine
rights of kings, is responsible for the murder of Thomas of Woodstock.77
Finally, before going to meet his fate in the Green Chapel, Gawain faces
one last temptation when the guide admonishes him to avoid from its pitiless
dweller and says
Forthy, goude Sir Gawayn, let the gome one,
And gots away sum other gate, upon Goddes halve!
Cayres bi sum other kyth, ther Kryst mot yow spede,
And I schal hyy me hom ayayn, and hete yow fyrre
That I schal swere bi God and alle his gode halwes,
As help me God and the halydamm and othes innoghe,
That I schal lelly yow layne and lauce never tale
75. SGGK, 1863.
76. SGGK, 188384.
77. For details on the tremendous and irreconcilable gap between Richards peaceful
rhetoric and divisive political actions, see Saul 442.

16

That ever ye fondet to fle for freke that I wyst.78

Whether one can ever believe in such promise of secrecy (especially in view of
Bertilaks omniscience in the scheme), even under oath made in Gods name,
what Gawain did in declining the guides offer can be seen as a display of
bravery and an honorable act in meeting his promise in spite of fear, or a
result of credulity in the power of the girdle in saving him for the occasion.
Such a bifurcation in interpretation, replicating the two diverging roads that
Gawain chooses, of course comes from Gawains tainted honor due to failure
to honor the promise in returning whatever he gains to the host.
Whatever Gawains true intention is, it has contributed in the audience an
expectation for the fateful meeting between Gawain and the Green Knight.
Nevertheless, Gawains emphasis for receiving one only strike, his flinching
before the first attempt, and, after the third and damaging strike, his angry insistence for having fulfilled the terms further suggest the influence of
Gawains fear and desire to extricate himself from this situation.79 With
the Green Knight revealing his full intention and explaining the rationale
for the three strikes,80 the audience, like Gawain, now experiences the full
significance of the adventure. After all, despite the unseemly and alien appearance of the place and the inhabitant, this Green Chapel is where Gawain
has to recognize his failure, to receive his full absolution, and with these to
be awarded with the girdle that, like a pure token / Of the chaunce if the
Grene Chapel at chevalrous knyghtes.81 Commemorating this occasion, the
girdle also transforms from this point and becomes the proof thereof, both
for his fellow knights and for the audience in posterity. Furthermore, for
Gawain, the girdle further serves as a testament for the fate of men (and the
whole humankind) sealed by women to proceed on foolish acts recurring in
biblical accounts.82 Whether it is just another example of misogyny or, as Ingledew argues, a reflection the sexual misconduct in Edward IIIs England,83
Gawains explication for his fall constitutes an homily to the audience who
may be tempted by the opposite sex.
Declining Bertilaks offer to visit Morgan le Fay, Arthurs half-sister and
the chief engineer of the plan to assay the surquidre or presumption in
Arthurs court,84 Gawain goes back to Arthurs court immediately and tells
his fellow knights of his marvelous adventure, producing the scar as the
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.

SGGK, 211825.
SGGK, 2252; 2267, 2272; 232730.
SGGK, 235868.
SGGK, 239094, 2399.
SGGK, 241419.
Ingledew, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and the Order of the Garter, 6591.
SGGK, 2457.

17

symbol of his shameful disloyalty and in effect becoming the first original
author (and authority) of the story.85 As the material proof and result for
all these, the girdle, as claimed by Gawain,
is the bende of this blame I bere in my nek;
This is the lathe and the losse that I laght have
Of covardise and covetyse, that I haf caght thare;
This is the token of untrawthe that I am tan inne,
And I mot nedes hit were wyle I may last.
For mon may hyden his harme, bot unhap ne may hit,
For ther hit ones is tachched, twynne wil hit never.86
Thus, for Gawain, the object becomes a token of his acquired (caght)
disease of betrayal that cannot be erased from him for life. However, the
response of his original audience who Laghen loude ther-at seems incongruous with the solemnity and grave purpose in Gawains experience and
story.87 With Gawains girdle being reproduced and distributed to other
members of the court, this sign of stigma has lost its original meaning or
moral significance.
For that was acorded the renoun of the Rounde Table,
And he honoured that hit hade, evermore after,
As hit is breved in the best boke of romaunce.
Thus in Arthurus day this aunter bitidde,
The Brutus bokes therof beres wyttenesse.
Sythen Brutus, the bolde burne, bowed hider fyrst,
After the segge and the asaute wats sesed at Troye,
Iwysse,
Mont aunteres here biforne
Haf fallen such, er this.
Now that bere the croun of thorn,
He bryng us to his blysse!88
Thus, in the realm of cultural memory, the girdle is absorbed and reified
into the matters of romance and historiography, just as it is reproduced,
manufactured, and rebranded as a badge of honor and fellowship. In the
same way it becomes a metaphor for Gawains story before his audience
who jests about his suffering and completely forgets the moral lessons or
85.
86.
87.
88.

SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,
SGGK,

24942501.
250612.
2514.
251930.

18

tropological meanings of the story.89 By analogy, it seems that this story,

when retold by the poet, can result to a similar effect for his unsuspecting
contemporary audience, who may not or could not appreciate the recitation
as anything more than a delightful pastime befitting a nobleman. However, as
the story for Arthurs famous court and not-so-perfect Round Table exhibit,
it is perhaps such ignorance of ones own weaknesses that results to ones
downfall, which can surely come to the audience, especially when they forget
the poets intentions in uncovering our own weaknesses beneath the veneer
of supposed superiority.
However, with the same portrayal of historical lineage that constitutes
to the overarching frame structure, we are also to know Gawains storytelling expands and propagates the existing fabric of history, thus serving
the typology and prefiguring the narrators (and those of his predecessors)
speech act in realizing his poem in words and verbal delivery. Alternatively,
one can also say that it is the narrator at work in portraying Gawain as
his earliest predecessor ex post facto. In theological terms, Gawains story
and Camelot completes the circle started from the early myths and histories
of Adam, Aeneas, Brutus, Troy, and, Christ in their suffering and defeat,
becoming what Victor Yelverton Haines identifies as representations of the
recurring motif of fortunate fall.90 The poem thus comes to full circle and
ends in Christ, the preeminent source of typology and ultimate redeemer of
human beings from their fallen status.
With the contrast and divergence suggested for the reading above, we
are led to encounter the motto HONY SOYT QUI MAL Y PENCE, the
inscription to the Order of Garter first instituted by Edward III, who also
tried to revive the Round Table in his court. Whether this final word (for
lack of better word) constitutes part of the original text, of reader response,
or even of reader response thereof91 such injunction against ill intentions suggests the imperfection and ambiguity in human nature and its achievements
blended in one fabric of human knowledge and our literary experience. This,
I believe, is the message that the Gawain-poet, with or without the motto,
was trying to deliver before his audience by portraying their predecessors at
Arthurs court, because even a good and meaningful story can be appreciated
by an unknowing audience, who may for their misguided, uninformed, and
89. For a more detailed discussion on the intricate relationship performance between
matters of romance and historiography, see Ingledew, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight
and the Order of the Garter, 22122.
90. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as Figura of the Felix Culpa (PhD diss., McGill
University, 1974), 4117.
91. For an updated account of the speculation, see Ingledew, Sir Gawain and The Green
Knight and the Order of the Garter, 224.

19

even evil intentions mar and deviate from and forget the serious lesson of
the story. Thus, we can even say that SGGK, prefiguring the postmodern
concept of reader and at the cusp of the oral and literary cultures, is truly
one quintessential piece of literature in our time.92

92. This is a point often brought up by critics who try to associate SGGK with its fellow
poems in the Pearl manuscript and other religious writings. For a detailed discussion see
Watson, The Gawain-poet as a Vernacular Theologian, 294313.

20