In the wake of the Knight’s Tale, a courtly romance that conspicuously skirts love’s physical consummation, we might expect the Miller’s self-dubbed “churlish” tale to be less evasive in this respect, to give us more of a show. Indeed, in his attempt to “quyte the Knightes tale” (MT 19) with his own, the Miller spins a narrative that seems very much concerned with the bodies of its characters.
Chaucer, likewise, seems to have anticipated this desire on the part of his own audience but, being altogether cleverer than his Miller, refuses us the facile satisfaction that we might derive from a straight, unadulterated fabliau about a carpenter, his wife and her lover. Instead, while the Miller might seem bent on brazenly parading bodies in front of his company of pilgrims, Chaucer is hard at work complicating these images, lacing our impressions of the Miller’s characters with overlapping social and sexual distinctions so that we come away not only skeptical of the Knight’s Tale’s tenuously maintained decorum but also with some uneasy questions about the Miller’s relationship to his own tale.
The Miller’s Tale is both a dramatization of and exercise in misdirection. By this I mean that, while the most gripping theme of the tale is that of Alison and her lover, Nicholas, actively staging pranks and purporting falsehoods at the expense of her suitor, Absolon, and her husband, John, our first and strongest impressions of these characters are equally staged and false. Though each first appears as a caricatured bundle of stock attributes, these appearances, like just about everything in Chaucer, become far too complicated over the course of the narrative for any simple type to support.
John’s image as the jealous husband, for instance, who locks up his wife Anarwe in cage” (MT 116) unravels as we see the basically unbridled freedom Alison enjoys in her infidelity and other chicanery. Nicholas and Absolon, likewise, hardly seem to cleanly fit their respective initial molds as the brusque, “queynte” (MT 173) groping lover or the foppish, perfumed dandy, for by the end of the tale Nicholas has preened himself repeatedly, both men have sweetened themselves with licorice, and it is Absolon who violently brandishes the glowing coulter after discovering Alison is hardly the “gay gerl” he had thought that she was.
Interestingly, it is Alison, ostensibly the subject of every other character’s desire and the tale’s only woman, that makes gender alignment such a sticky wicket in the Miller’s Tale. While, admittedly, she is the most graphically described of the characters (being grabbed by the “queynte”), she is strangely also the one whose appearance is most clothed in elision and metaphor. Now reference to a beautiful woman as if she were “...ful moore blisful on to see / Than is the newe pere-jonette tree” (MT 139-40), conventional as such a description is on its own, may hardly seem significant, but when compared with the only other description in the Canterbury Tales thus far of a woman who has clearly been around, some striking similarities arise. I am referring, of course, to the opening portrait of the Wife of Bath in which the reader feels a degree of the narrator’s coy embarrassment as his description descends to her red stockings, implies what must lay beneath, and sends him reeling back to a safer, more remote appreciation of her hat.
Something similar, though not parallel, seems to be going on with the Miller’s reticence about granting Alison’s body the same delicate, specific treatment he affords her clothing. Rather than averting his eyes as Chaucer the pilgrim seems to in the General Prologue, however, the Miller shifts awkwardly to Nicholas’s brutish attempt to seduce Alison by catching her Aby the queynte” and proclaiming clumsily that if he doesn’t have her right this instant he will Aspille” (MT 175) no, that he "wol dyen” (MT 178) just as we are on the verge of visualizing an individual.
One way to read this weird, but jarring descriptive shift is as a sort of macho wish-fulfillment, a pornographic projection of the ideal woman; a sexy but faceless coquette, Awylde and yong” (MT 117) with a "likerous eye” (MT 116). This, however, is only part of the story for the poet has equipped Alison with a strong sense of personal agency that vastly complicates the model of an empty tart or country wench. And, while she may still fall somewhat short of a fully actualized individual within the tale, the fact that she accepts Nicholas into her bed only “[w]han that she may hir leyser wel espie” (MT 185) sets her at least a step closer than the Knight’s Princess Emileye who would forfeit herself to whoever wanted her more. Further, while the ladies of the Knight’s Tale acted only when pressed to respond to the actions of others, Alison appears to be more fully the author of her own actions. The carpenter’s willfully adulterous wife, as a result, cannot truly be read as just a passive object or sexual idol for, though she is physically described within such a frame by the Miller, his relation of her non-physical attributes confounds such a reading.
The second and final instance of actual physical contact between two characters takes place when Absolon finds himself on a ladder with a mouthful of Ahir naked ers” (MT 631) in the infamous misdirected kiss scene. Here, and in the surrounding lines, Alison’s anatomy is both grossly specified as “hir hole” (MT 629) and described as Aa thing al rough and longe y-herd” (MT 635), characterizations which seem largely un-gendered, androgynous, erotically barren even in light of the clearly sexual context of a girl hanging her goods out the window, presenting for the mouth of her suitor one orifice in the place of another.
In the last fifty lines of the Miller’s Tale, so much happens, so many levels of resonance conflate together so rapidly, that the overall sense is one of collapsing associative demarcations. As Absolon attempts to “quyte” Alison’s ridiculous exchange of mouth for “ers” with his own violent exchange of mouth for coulter, Nicholas takes the brunt, having butted-in on the gag at the wrong time, an image overwhelming with homoerotic implications. As Nicholas yelps for water to soothe his scalded “toute,” the narrative strains of the Noah’s flood gambit and John the cuckold are introduced to Absolon’s ridiculed courtship of Alison. While precisely what this absence of a solid gender distinction like “queynte” here is meant to signify is at once unclear and unverifiable, the effect of Absolon’s misdirected kiss upon the narrative is unmistakable, devastating, anarchic. That the tale seems so neatly wrapped up at the end, so summarized, then suggests that either the Miller has intended this as a parody of the failed finale of the Knight’s Tale or that he too, in the telling of his own tale, has unraveled associations too close to home. Perhaps, then, it is the Miller’s own body, or at least his own relation to it, that really matters most.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
THE KNIGHT'S TALE
Do This:
1) go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/3knight.pdf
2) Scroll down to page 9 and begin reading "The Knight's Tale."
3) Read Part 1 (that's lines 859-1354) by Friday.
4) Read the remaining parts (lines 1355-3109) by Next Week!
5) Be prepared to discuss (either on paper or aloud or both) by the middle of Next Week!
1) go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/3knight.pdf
2) Scroll down to page 9 and begin reading "The Knight's Tale."
3) Read Part 1 (that's lines 859-1354) by Friday.
4) Read the remaining parts (lines 1355-3109) by Next Week!
5) Be prepared to discuss (either on paper or aloud or both) by the middle of Next Week!
Monday, May 14, 2007
Essay on Chaucer’s "General Prologue" to the Canterbury Tales
If we treat Chaucer’s Prologue to the Canterbury Tales too narrowly as an historical record, as purely sincere observational reporting, there are bound to be a few casualties among its fictional elements. Perhaps first among these elements is the reporter himself, Chaucer the pilgrim, and the role he plays in the Prologue and the links between the Tales. Once we have dispelled the outmoded notion that Chaucer the poet shares the same wide-eyed naiveté as his narrator seems to, however, a temptation to simplify the nature of their relationship to one another in quite the opposite fashion surfaces. In recoiling from such an assumption about the poet's identity, it would be easy to over-compensate and place an unadulterated reflection of Chaucer himself instead as the front-man for the Canterbury Tales. We would then have an incurably clever and ironic reporter for a narrator setting out from an actual Tabard Inn, his eyes peeled for every idiosyncrasy, his pen handy for the transcription of every detail–to the last boiled shin–so his audience might see them just as he did. Reading in this way, we might even allow ourselves to ascribe every fatuous or inane piece of commentary made about his fellow pilgrims–of which there is no shortage–either to some resident societal peculiarities of the Middle Ages or to Chaucer's own sardonic sensibility.
While this notion of a tongue-in-cheek Chaucer may provide us with an unarguably better foundation upon which to construct the whole man than a roly-poly simpleton of a poet would, such a reading, I believe, would dangerously distort our critical perception of both Chaucer the pilgrim and the fiction in which he is rooted. In particular, it would at the very least muddy our sense of Chaucerian irony to see through the eyes of a scholar acutely aware of the significance beneath everyone in his company, one that ironically seasons his evidence for our pleasure and instruction. To my reckoning, just the reverse of this narrative strategy would seem more consistent with the feel of the Canterbury Tales. So instead, let us suppose here a fully fictional, constructed narrator-pilgrim that is, for the most part, happily unaware of the significance of his surroundings and company. Granted, he must be allowed the occasional lucid insight so as not to seem a perfect buffoon, but in general he is as much the product of his creator's penchant for ironic characterization as his fellow travelers.
Under this light, several things happen to our sense of Chaucer's work and all of its residents. Most striking of these effects, perhaps, is the smooth reconciliation that becomes possible between the Canterbury Tales and the extant literary tradition to which they are so closely, though adroitly, related. Chaucer's project is now recognizable as an innovative branch of the same literary family as, for example, William Langland's Piers Plowman, the population of which bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Canterbury pilgrims.
It seems to have been up to Chaucer, then to turn this troupe of ancient satirical stock characters into real people from the outside in, as it were, with all their traditional faults draped loosely upon them. The consummate showman, ambitious to the core, Chaucer seems to have been trying to do his contemporaries one better and assembles all of his characters for a pilgrimage and has them described by another pilgrim who records faithfully their faults one by one, but is humorously unable to recognize them as faults for he also is but a caricature, one of the poet himself. And as such he represents the primary filter through which both poet and poem must be read.
This is most evident in Chaucer the pilgrim’s description of his companions. If, for example, we believe that Chaucer the poet liked his Prioress, even though he did satirize her somewhat, albeit very gently, Chaucer the pilgrim was utterly taken with her. In the first twenty-odd lines of her portrait (118 -38) he lays her qualities on thick, completely exhausting in the process, among other superlatives, the adverb ful. Indeed, the Prioress seems to have reduced the narrative to a nearly childish catalogue of virtues that are only understood in one degree.
Though it seems clear enough, supposing we believe our narrator, that the Prioress is the very picture of a lady, she is hardly a perfect nun. Of course, though Chaucer does pack her portrait visibly with abuses that may have been typical of medieval nuns, taken on their own they are mostly harmless and superficial. Nonetheless, their presence in the portrait is impossible to disregard unless they’re come upon with the same innocent enthusiasm as Chaucer the pilgrim. For he is so swept up in his admiration of her that completely misses the blatant implications of such a high-profile nun. While it may be tempting to read the pilgrim’s appreciation for the Prioress as an actual reflection of the sophisticated, living Chaucer who may likely have preferred amiable, worldly nuns to good nuns, such a redundant slathering on of superlatives hardly seems appropriate. Rather, this aspect of the pilgrim’s manner seems more the response of an overwhelmed bourgeois, fully dazzled by the elegance of high society. This, I believe, is one aspect of the character through which Chaucer the poet intended us to first see the world of the Canterbury Tales, one that can't help but warmly affirm for us how things seem, while its architect implies through his design how things are.
Whole-hearted approval of the values to which his societal superiors subscribe is seen again in his portrait of the Monk. If the Prioress’s appeal to him is through elegant femininity, the Monk’s is through his imposing image as a real man’s man. Chaucer the pilgrim is as pleased with the Monk as the Monk is with himself, and seems to accept him on his own terms without supposing that such terms may run contrary to those of his station. For instance, in the wake of the Monk’s self-congratulatory rationalization of his love of hunting, our narrator eagerly chimes in:
And I seyde his opinioun was good:
What sholde he studie, and make himself wood,
Upon a book in a cloistre alwey to poure,
Or swinken with his handes, and laboure,
As Austin bit? How shal the world be served?
Lat Austin have his swink to him reserved! (183-8)
Once he has finished wallowing in his admiration of socially important people on the pilgrimage, however, the pilgrim’s tone changes for he can now concern himself with the bourgeoisie, members of his own class for whom he does not have to show such profound respect. Interestingly, it is not until this section of the Prologue that Chaucer’s own voice seeps audibly into the narrative and his poet and pilgrim personae seem to blur together somewhat. Indeed, he can even afford to be a little patronizing at times, as in his little joke about the feigned diligence of the Lawyer (322). Further, in addition to such oblique assertions of his own moral superiority, the portraits of his class-mates seem to go far in implying, somewhat cynically, that the primary middle-class motivation is for profit and property, for his interest and admiration for the other bourgeois pilgrims is centered mainly in their material prosperity and their ability to increase it.
He starts, appropriately enough with the out-and-out money-grubber, the Merchant, and after turning aside for that lusus naturae, the academic Clerk, proceeds to the Lawyer, who, despite the pilgrim's little joke, is the best-paid ever; the Franklin, twenty-one admiring lines on his expensively satiated appetite; the Guildsmen, cheered up the social ladder, 'For catel hadde they ynough and rente' (373); and the Physician, again the best and richest. In this series the portrait of the Clerk seems to stand out, pristine; but while the Clerk may represent an ideal to us–and to Chaucer, who’s image is hard not so see in the bookworm–the pilgrim's sense of values in his joke about the Clerk's failure to make money seems strangely infused with a more personal flavor–as if the poet were reaching into the narrative and planting an ironic snare for his real societal peers that might rib him about his own bookishness.
None of this is meant to imply that the pilgrim was wholly incapable of recognizing a true miscreant when he saw one. He could, provided the wrongdoer was a member of the lower classes and his transgressions were blatant enough: Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, and Pardoner are all acknowledged rascals. However, it can hardly be accidental–as if anything Chaucer applied his pen to was– that in all these cases there loomed the object of making money. Further, while the pilgrim–shown earlier to be conscious of life’s finer aspects–does deplore such matters as the Miller's brutish language, he also betrays his admiration for such a competent criminal on those very grounds. The equally repellent Summoner, a practicing bawd, seems partially redeemed both by his apparent skill as 'a gentil harlot' (647), and by the fact that for a moderate bribe he will neglect to summon. Implicitly shaded in these degrees, then, Chaucer the pilgrim comes to appear himself as less than ethically adamant.
One might reasonably ask, then, how this ostensibly uncertain sense of values may be reconciled with the enthusiasm he shows for the rigorous integrity for the actually virtuous characters like the Plowman and Parson, but I am not sure that there is any basic inconsistency here. It is the nature of the pilgrim to admire all kinds of superlatives, and the fact that he often admires those devoid of, or opposed to, genuine virtue does not inhibit his equal admiration for virtue incarnate. Innate and uncluttered virtue like the Parson’s presents no problems to the well-intentioned observer, but in a world consisting mostly of imperfections and massaged truths, accurate evaluations are difficult for a pilgrim who, like most of us, is a little naive, ill-equipped to either apprehend all that we see or see all that there is to apprehend.
While this notion of a tongue-in-cheek Chaucer may provide us with an unarguably better foundation upon which to construct the whole man than a roly-poly simpleton of a poet would, such a reading, I believe, would dangerously distort our critical perception of both Chaucer the pilgrim and the fiction in which he is rooted. In particular, it would at the very least muddy our sense of Chaucerian irony to see through the eyes of a scholar acutely aware of the significance beneath everyone in his company, one that ironically seasons his evidence for our pleasure and instruction. To my reckoning, just the reverse of this narrative strategy would seem more consistent with the feel of the Canterbury Tales. So instead, let us suppose here a fully fictional, constructed narrator-pilgrim that is, for the most part, happily unaware of the significance of his surroundings and company. Granted, he must be allowed the occasional lucid insight so as not to seem a perfect buffoon, but in general he is as much the product of his creator's penchant for ironic characterization as his fellow travelers.
Under this light, several things happen to our sense of Chaucer's work and all of its residents. Most striking of these effects, perhaps, is the smooth reconciliation that becomes possible between the Canterbury Tales and the extant literary tradition to which they are so closely, though adroitly, related. Chaucer's project is now recognizable as an innovative branch of the same literary family as, for example, William Langland's Piers Plowman, the population of which bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Canterbury pilgrims.
It seems to have been up to Chaucer, then to turn this troupe of ancient satirical stock characters into real people from the outside in, as it were, with all their traditional faults draped loosely upon them. The consummate showman, ambitious to the core, Chaucer seems to have been trying to do his contemporaries one better and assembles all of his characters for a pilgrimage and has them described by another pilgrim who records faithfully their faults one by one, but is humorously unable to recognize them as faults for he also is but a caricature, one of the poet himself. And as such he represents the primary filter through which both poet and poem must be read.
This is most evident in Chaucer the pilgrim’s description of his companions. If, for example, we believe that Chaucer the poet liked his Prioress, even though he did satirize her somewhat, albeit very gently, Chaucer the pilgrim was utterly taken with her. In the first twenty-odd lines of her portrait (118 -38) he lays her qualities on thick, completely exhausting in the process, among other superlatives, the adverb ful. Indeed, the Prioress seems to have reduced the narrative to a nearly childish catalogue of virtues that are only understood in one degree.
Though it seems clear enough, supposing we believe our narrator, that the Prioress is the very picture of a lady, she is hardly a perfect nun. Of course, though Chaucer does pack her portrait visibly with abuses that may have been typical of medieval nuns, taken on their own they are mostly harmless and superficial. Nonetheless, their presence in the portrait is impossible to disregard unless they’re come upon with the same innocent enthusiasm as Chaucer the pilgrim. For he is so swept up in his admiration of her that completely misses the blatant implications of such a high-profile nun. While it may be tempting to read the pilgrim’s appreciation for the Prioress as an actual reflection of the sophisticated, living Chaucer who may likely have preferred amiable, worldly nuns to good nuns, such a redundant slathering on of superlatives hardly seems appropriate. Rather, this aspect of the pilgrim’s manner seems more the response of an overwhelmed bourgeois, fully dazzled by the elegance of high society. This, I believe, is one aspect of the character through which Chaucer the poet intended us to first see the world of the Canterbury Tales, one that can't help but warmly affirm for us how things seem, while its architect implies through his design how things are.
Whole-hearted approval of the values to which his societal superiors subscribe is seen again in his portrait of the Monk. If the Prioress’s appeal to him is through elegant femininity, the Monk’s is through his imposing image as a real man’s man. Chaucer the pilgrim is as pleased with the Monk as the Monk is with himself, and seems to accept him on his own terms without supposing that such terms may run contrary to those of his station. For instance, in the wake of the Monk’s self-congratulatory rationalization of his love of hunting, our narrator eagerly chimes in:
And I seyde his opinioun was good:
What sholde he studie, and make himself wood,
Upon a book in a cloistre alwey to poure,
Or swinken with his handes, and laboure,
As Austin bit? How shal the world be served?
Lat Austin have his swink to him reserved! (183-8)
Once he has finished wallowing in his admiration of socially important people on the pilgrimage, however, the pilgrim’s tone changes for he can now concern himself with the bourgeoisie, members of his own class for whom he does not have to show such profound respect. Interestingly, it is not until this section of the Prologue that Chaucer’s own voice seeps audibly into the narrative and his poet and pilgrim personae seem to blur together somewhat. Indeed, he can even afford to be a little patronizing at times, as in his little joke about the feigned diligence of the Lawyer (322). Further, in addition to such oblique assertions of his own moral superiority, the portraits of his class-mates seem to go far in implying, somewhat cynically, that the primary middle-class motivation is for profit and property, for his interest and admiration for the other bourgeois pilgrims is centered mainly in their material prosperity and their ability to increase it.
He starts, appropriately enough with the out-and-out money-grubber, the Merchant, and after turning aside for that lusus naturae, the academic Clerk, proceeds to the Lawyer, who, despite the pilgrim's little joke, is the best-paid ever; the Franklin, twenty-one admiring lines on his expensively satiated appetite; the Guildsmen, cheered up the social ladder, 'For catel hadde they ynough and rente' (373); and the Physician, again the best and richest. In this series the portrait of the Clerk seems to stand out, pristine; but while the Clerk may represent an ideal to us–and to Chaucer, who’s image is hard not so see in the bookworm–the pilgrim's sense of values in his joke about the Clerk's failure to make money seems strangely infused with a more personal flavor–as if the poet were reaching into the narrative and planting an ironic snare for his real societal peers that might rib him about his own bookishness.
None of this is meant to imply that the pilgrim was wholly incapable of recognizing a true miscreant when he saw one. He could, provided the wrongdoer was a member of the lower classes and his transgressions were blatant enough: Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, and Pardoner are all acknowledged rascals. However, it can hardly be accidental–as if anything Chaucer applied his pen to was– that in all these cases there loomed the object of making money. Further, while the pilgrim–shown earlier to be conscious of life’s finer aspects–does deplore such matters as the Miller's brutish language, he also betrays his admiration for such a competent criminal on those very grounds. The equally repellent Summoner, a practicing bawd, seems partially redeemed both by his apparent skill as 'a gentil harlot' (647), and by the fact that for a moderate bribe he will neglect to summon. Implicitly shaded in these degrees, then, Chaucer the pilgrim comes to appear himself as less than ethically adamant.
One might reasonably ask, then, how this ostensibly uncertain sense of values may be reconciled with the enthusiasm he shows for the rigorous integrity for the actually virtuous characters like the Plowman and Parson, but I am not sure that there is any basic inconsistency here. It is the nature of the pilgrim to admire all kinds of superlatives, and the fact that he often admires those devoid of, or opposed to, genuine virtue does not inhibit his equal admiration for virtue incarnate. Innate and uncluttered virtue like the Parson’s presents no problems to the well-intentioned observer, but in a world consisting mostly of imperfections and massaged truths, accurate evaluations are difficult for a pilgrim who, like most of us, is a little naive, ill-equipped to either apprehend all that we see or see all that there is to apprehend.
Monday, May 07, 2007
SIR GAWAIN READING QUESTIONS
READING QUESTIONS:
Answer the following questions as you read and reflect on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. These are due next Monday, so that we can move on to our good buddy Chaucer!!!
PART 1 (lines 1-490, pp. 156-168)
1. Why does the poem begin with the Trojan War, not with King Arthur or Sir Gawain?
2. What season of the year is it as the actual story begins? Why is that significant? What night is it when the main events of Part 1 take place (line 60)?
3. How old (more or less) are Arthur and his knights when the story takes place? How do you know?
4. Why won't Arthur eat his dinner yet?
5. What is the most unusual thing about the man who rides into the hall? In what interesting way does the author bring us that information? What is the man carrying in his hands (lines 206-208)? How does the man behave when he enters? Whom does he ask for? What initial response does he get?
6. What does the Green Knight propose? (Note the language he uses in lines 273 and 283.)
7. How many knights initially offer to undertake the Green Knight's challenge? What arguments does Gawain finally use in asking to be given the challenge?
8. What happens when Gawain cuts off the Green Knight's head (lines 425 ff)? What do the colors in line 429 remind you of?
9. What is Arthur's response once the Green Knight has left?
PART 2 (lines 491-1104, pp. 168-181)
1. When does Gawain leave Arthur's court?
2. What color is Gawain's armor? (See lines 603, 619.)
3. What appears on the outside of his shield? What appears on the inside? What does the pentangle stand for? What, especially, do the fifth five mean? (In the original, the five are fraunchyse, felawschyp, clannes, cortaysye, and pité.) The author stresses that all of the fives are linked (lines 656-661). What happens in such a structure if any one of the elements gives way?
4. What route does Gawain follow? Can you trace it on the map inside the front cover of the book? What sorts of adventures does he encounter?
5. The "Christmas Eve" of line 734 is actually the evening of December 23. What does Gawain fear he will miss on December 24 (lines 750-762)? What happens after Gawain's prayer?
6. How is Gawain received in the castle? How does the lord of the castle respond? How would you describe the lord of the castle?
7. How well does Gawain maintain his Christmas Eve fast?
8. What do the castle residents expect once they know it is Gawain (lines 908-927)? In other words, what is Gawain well-known for?
9. What two women does Gawain meet after evensong? How are they described? How does Gawain behave with the women?
10. The dates get confusing at line 1020, since one day seems to be omitted. "That day and all the next" of line 1020 refer to Christmas day and December 26 (St. Stephen's Day). "St. John's Day" of line 1022 is December 27. What appears to be missing, according to the poem's most recent editors, is a line or two after line 1022 referring to December 28, Holy Innocents' Day, the last of the three major feasts following Christmas. Thus "the last of their like for those lords and ladies" (line 1023) would refer to the "joys" of December 28, and the guests would "go in the gray morning" (line 1024) of December 29 (which in England is the Feast of St. Thomas à Becket, murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by associates of King Henry II on Christmas Day 1170). The three days described in Part 3 are thus December 29, 30, and 31, and at the beginning of Part 4 Gawain leaves for the Green Chapel on January 1.
11. Why does Gawain tell the lord he has to leave? What surprising news does the lord have for him? What does Gawain then decide to do?
12. What arrangements does the lord propose for Gawain and himself for the next day? How does Gawain respond?
PART 3 (lines 1126-1997, pp. 181-199)
1. What animal does the lord hunt the first day?
2. What happens to Gawain while he is still in bed? What does he pretend to do? What happens when he finally "wakes up"? What metaphor do the lady and Gawain use in lines 1210 ff.? What does the lady seem to have in mind? How does Gawain respond? Why, as the lady is leaving, does she say "But our guest is not Gawain" (line 1293)? What does she give Gawain?
3. What happens in the last part of the first day's hunt? What does the lord give Gawain when he returns home? What does Gawain give the lord? What do they agree on for the second day?
4. What animal does the lord hunt the second day?
5. What happens to Gawain the second day? How does he respond differently this time? Why does the lady complain? What does she ask him to do (lines 1533-1534)? What is suggested by the narrator's comments in lines 1549-1551? What does the lady give him?
6. What happens in the last part of the second day's hunt? What does the lord give Gawain when he returns home? What does Gawain give the lord? What do they agree on for the third day? What is bothering Gawain? (See lines 1657-1663.) Note that one part of the pentangle ("cortaysye") is in opposition to another part ("clannes"), and remember what might happen if any part of the pentangle fails.
7. What animal does the lord hunt the third day?
8. What happens to Gawain the third day? What is the meaning of the narrator's warning in lines 1768-1769? What choices does Gawain have (lines 1770-1775)? Notice that line 1775 brings in another element, Gawain's oath. What is in question here is his "troth" or truth. (In the original, line 1775 says that he would be "traytor" to the man that owned that dwelling.)
9. What does the lady give Gawain during her visit? What does the lady ask for as she leaves? What can Gawain give her? Why doesn't he accept the ring from him? What object does he accept from her? Why does he accept it? What does it look like? (Should line 1832 remind you of anything?)
10. What does Gawain do differently after the lady leaves? What is ironic about lines 1883-1884? What should Gawain have included in his confession that he probably didn't because it was only planned at that point but hadn't actually occurred?
11. What happens in the last part of the third day's hunt? What color is "Sir Reynard" the fox, and how is he treated? Does his color remind you of anything?
12. What happens differently when the lord returns home on the third day? Why? Does Gawain meet the terms of his oath? How well does Gawain sleep that night? Why?
PART 4 (lines 1998-2530, pp. 199-210)
1. Gawain puts on the girdle in lines 2030-2036. Does the combination of colors in lines 2035-2036 remind you of anything (even though it may be anachronistic)?
2. What does the guide say about the Green Knight? What does he tell Gawain to do? What is Gawain's response?
3. Is the Green Chapel what Gawain expected it to be? What is it?
4. What tone does the Green Knight maintain throughout Gawain's encounter with him?
5. What happens the first time the Green Knight raises the ax? What does he tell Gawain in line 2270? Have we heard that before?
6. What happens the second time the Green Knight raises the ax? What is Gawain's response?
7. What happens the third time the Green Knight raises the ax? What is Gawain's response?
8. What surprises do we and Gawain get in the Green Knight's explanation of the three tries (lines 2345-2357)? What additional surprise appears in lines 2358-2361?
9. How does the Green Knight judge Gawain's performance during his tests? How does Gawain judge his own performance? Whom does Gawain blame (lines 2411-2428)?
10. Who is the Green Knight? Who is the old woman at the castle? Why is she so much more important to the poem than she appeared to be? What did she want to do to Arthur's knights? What did she want to do to Arthur's queen?
11. What is Gawain's attitude when he returns to court? What is the court's attitude? What happens to the girdle? What does the court do about it?
12. Whose response should we see as the more appropriate, Gawain's or that of both the Green Knight and the court?
13. What is the effect of the last part of the last stanza (lines 2519-2550)? To be accurate to the original, lines 2525-2526 should read "After the siege and the assult was ceased at Troy / iwiss [I know],". Compare line 2525 and line 1. What is the effect of repeating the first line of the poem here?
14. What additional understanding do we get of the poem by noting that until this century January 1 was primarily celebrated as "The Circumcision of Our Lord"? The circumcision is mentioned in Luke 2:21. Some sense of the significance of the circumcision can be seen in the collect [prayer] for the feast:
"Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will. Through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen."
More of the significance of the circumcision as foreshadowing the crucifixion and resurrection can be seen in the hymn provided for Matins of the feast:
O blessed day, when first was poured
The precious blood of Christ our Lord!
O blessed day, when so began
His travail in redeeming man!
Scarce entered on our life of woe,
His infant blood for us doth flow!
Whilst yet he suckles at the breast,
Atoning love he thus confessed!
From heaven come, and willingly,
Man's sacrificial Lamb is he!
The Son of God, quick to fulfil
Each mandate of his Father's will!
Beneath the knife see Mary's Child,
God's Innocent! man's Undefiled!
For sinners he would ransom pay,
For lawless man the Law obey!
Grant circumcision, Lord, within;
Cut from our hearts the love of sin!
That we thy likeness true may bear,
Carve deep thy Name and image there! Amen.
Of course, Gawain is not a Christ-figure, merely a human (even if one of the best). But certainly the "little blood" (line 2314) of Gawain's that is shed on January 1 for his "sins" would remind at least some in the audience listening to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight of the feast celebrated on the same day.
Answer the following questions as you read and reflect on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. These are due next Monday, so that we can move on to our good buddy Chaucer!!!
PART 1 (lines 1-490, pp. 156-168)
1. Why does the poem begin with the Trojan War, not with King Arthur or Sir Gawain?
2. What season of the year is it as the actual story begins? Why is that significant? What night is it when the main events of Part 1 take place (line 60)?
3. How old (more or less) are Arthur and his knights when the story takes place? How do you know?
4. Why won't Arthur eat his dinner yet?
5. What is the most unusual thing about the man who rides into the hall? In what interesting way does the author bring us that information? What is the man carrying in his hands (lines 206-208)? How does the man behave when he enters? Whom does he ask for? What initial response does he get?
6. What does the Green Knight propose? (Note the language he uses in lines 273 and 283.)
7. How many knights initially offer to undertake the Green Knight's challenge? What arguments does Gawain finally use in asking to be given the challenge?
8. What happens when Gawain cuts off the Green Knight's head (lines 425 ff)? What do the colors in line 429 remind you of?
9. What is Arthur's response once the Green Knight has left?
PART 2 (lines 491-1104, pp. 168-181)
1. When does Gawain leave Arthur's court?
2. What color is Gawain's armor? (See lines 603, 619.)
3. What appears on the outside of his shield? What appears on the inside? What does the pentangle stand for? What, especially, do the fifth five mean? (In the original, the five are fraunchyse, felawschyp, clannes, cortaysye, and pité.) The author stresses that all of the fives are linked (lines 656-661). What happens in such a structure if any one of the elements gives way?
4. What route does Gawain follow? Can you trace it on the map inside the front cover of the book? What sorts of adventures does he encounter?
5. The "Christmas Eve" of line 734 is actually the evening of December 23. What does Gawain fear he will miss on December 24 (lines 750-762)? What happens after Gawain's prayer?
6. How is Gawain received in the castle? How does the lord of the castle respond? How would you describe the lord of the castle?
7. How well does Gawain maintain his Christmas Eve fast?
8. What do the castle residents expect once they know it is Gawain (lines 908-927)? In other words, what is Gawain well-known for?
9. What two women does Gawain meet after evensong? How are they described? How does Gawain behave with the women?
10. The dates get confusing at line 1020, since one day seems to be omitted. "That day and all the next" of line 1020 refer to Christmas day and December 26 (St. Stephen's Day). "St. John's Day" of line 1022 is December 27. What appears to be missing, according to the poem's most recent editors, is a line or two after line 1022 referring to December 28, Holy Innocents' Day, the last of the three major feasts following Christmas. Thus "the last of their like for those lords and ladies" (line 1023) would refer to the "joys" of December 28, and the guests would "go in the gray morning" (line 1024) of December 29 (which in England is the Feast of St. Thomas à Becket, murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by associates of King Henry II on Christmas Day 1170). The three days described in Part 3 are thus December 29, 30, and 31, and at the beginning of Part 4 Gawain leaves for the Green Chapel on January 1.
11. Why does Gawain tell the lord he has to leave? What surprising news does the lord have for him? What does Gawain then decide to do?
12. What arrangements does the lord propose for Gawain and himself for the next day? How does Gawain respond?
PART 3 (lines 1126-1997, pp. 181-199)
1. What animal does the lord hunt the first day?
2. What happens to Gawain while he is still in bed? What does he pretend to do? What happens when he finally "wakes up"? What metaphor do the lady and Gawain use in lines 1210 ff.? What does the lady seem to have in mind? How does Gawain respond? Why, as the lady is leaving, does she say "But our guest is not Gawain" (line 1293)? What does she give Gawain?
3. What happens in the last part of the first day's hunt? What does the lord give Gawain when he returns home? What does Gawain give the lord? What do they agree on for the second day?
4. What animal does the lord hunt the second day?
5. What happens to Gawain the second day? How does he respond differently this time? Why does the lady complain? What does she ask him to do (lines 1533-1534)? What is suggested by the narrator's comments in lines 1549-1551? What does the lady give him?
6. What happens in the last part of the second day's hunt? What does the lord give Gawain when he returns home? What does Gawain give the lord? What do they agree on for the third day? What is bothering Gawain? (See lines 1657-1663.) Note that one part of the pentangle ("cortaysye") is in opposition to another part ("clannes"), and remember what might happen if any part of the pentangle fails.
7. What animal does the lord hunt the third day?
8. What happens to Gawain the third day? What is the meaning of the narrator's warning in lines 1768-1769? What choices does Gawain have (lines 1770-1775)? Notice that line 1775 brings in another element, Gawain's oath. What is in question here is his "troth" or truth. (In the original, line 1775 says that he would be "traytor" to the man that owned that dwelling.)
9. What does the lady give Gawain during her visit? What does the lady ask for as she leaves? What can Gawain give her? Why doesn't he accept the ring from him? What object does he accept from her? Why does he accept it? What does it look like? (Should line 1832 remind you of anything?)
10. What does Gawain do differently after the lady leaves? What is ironic about lines 1883-1884? What should Gawain have included in his confession that he probably didn't because it was only planned at that point but hadn't actually occurred?
11. What happens in the last part of the third day's hunt? What color is "Sir Reynard" the fox, and how is he treated? Does his color remind you of anything?
12. What happens differently when the lord returns home on the third day? Why? Does Gawain meet the terms of his oath? How well does Gawain sleep that night? Why?
PART 4 (lines 1998-2530, pp. 199-210)
1. Gawain puts on the girdle in lines 2030-2036. Does the combination of colors in lines 2035-2036 remind you of anything (even though it may be anachronistic)?
2. What does the guide say about the Green Knight? What does he tell Gawain to do? What is Gawain's response?
3. Is the Green Chapel what Gawain expected it to be? What is it?
4. What tone does the Green Knight maintain throughout Gawain's encounter with him?
5. What happens the first time the Green Knight raises the ax? What does he tell Gawain in line 2270? Have we heard that before?
6. What happens the second time the Green Knight raises the ax? What is Gawain's response?
7. What happens the third time the Green Knight raises the ax? What is Gawain's response?
8. What surprises do we and Gawain get in the Green Knight's explanation of the three tries (lines 2345-2357)? What additional surprise appears in lines 2358-2361?
9. How does the Green Knight judge Gawain's performance during his tests? How does Gawain judge his own performance? Whom does Gawain blame (lines 2411-2428)?
10. Who is the Green Knight? Who is the old woman at the castle? Why is she so much more important to the poem than she appeared to be? What did she want to do to Arthur's knights? What did she want to do to Arthur's queen?
11. What is Gawain's attitude when he returns to court? What is the court's attitude? What happens to the girdle? What does the court do about it?
12. Whose response should we see as the more appropriate, Gawain's or that of both the Green Knight and the court?
13. What is the effect of the last part of the last stanza (lines 2519-2550)? To be accurate to the original, lines 2525-2526 should read "After the siege and the assult was ceased at Troy / iwiss [I know],". Compare line 2525 and line 1. What is the effect of repeating the first line of the poem here?
14. What additional understanding do we get of the poem by noting that until this century January 1 was primarily celebrated as "The Circumcision of Our Lord"? The circumcision is mentioned in Luke 2:21. Some sense of the significance of the circumcision can be seen in the collect [prayer] for the feast:
"Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will. Through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen."
More of the significance of the circumcision as foreshadowing the crucifixion and resurrection can be seen in the hymn provided for Matins of the feast:
O blessed day, when first was poured
The precious blood of Christ our Lord!
O blessed day, when so began
His travail in redeeming man!
Scarce entered on our life of woe,
His infant blood for us doth flow!
Whilst yet he suckles at the breast,
Atoning love he thus confessed!
From heaven come, and willingly,
Man's sacrificial Lamb is he!
The Son of God, quick to fulfil
Each mandate of his Father's will!
Beneath the knife see Mary's Child,
God's Innocent! man's Undefiled!
For sinners he would ransom pay,
For lawless man the Law obey!
Grant circumcision, Lord, within;
Cut from our hearts the love of sin!
That we thy likeness true may bear,
Carve deep thy Name and image there! Amen.
Of course, Gawain is not a Christ-figure, merely a human (even if one of the best). But certainly the "little blood" (line 2314) of Gawain's that is shed on January 1 for his "sins" would remind at least some in the audience listening to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight of the feast celebrated on the same day.
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