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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance

Online ISBN:
9780191673825
Print ISBN:
9780198182535
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance

Ad Putter
Ad Putter

Lecturer in English

University of Bristol
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Published online:
3 October 2011
Published in print:
13 April 1995
Online ISBN:
9780191673825
Print ISBN:
9780198182535
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This is an innovative and original exploration of the connections between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the most well-known works of medieval English literature, and the tradition of French Arthurian romance, best-known through the works of Chretien de Troyes two centuries earlier. The book compares Gawain with a wide range of French Arthurian romances, exploring their recurrent structural patterns and motifs, their ethical orientation and the social context in which they were produced. It presents a wealth of new sources and analogues, which provide illuminating points of comparison for analysis of the self-consciousness with which the Gawain-poet handled the staple ingredients of Arthurian romance. Throughout, the author pays close attention to the ways in which the modes of representation of Arthurian romance are related to social and historical context. By revealing in the course of their romances the importance of conscience, courtliness, and self-restraint, literati such as the Gawain-poet and Chretien de Troyes helped a feudal society with an obsolete chivalric ideology adapt to the changing times.

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