Poetry Review: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Gawain-Poet, 14th Century

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” was written by an unknown author, referred to as the Gawain-poet, in the late 14th Century. In 1839, it was found in the British Library. The British Library obtained the poem from the Cotton Library, and Sir Robert Cotton obtained it from a library in Yorkshire. The Gawain-poet lived somewhere in the Midlands of England, near Stafford. Upon finding the poem in the library, it was not discarded because it was written on an unusual substance parchment, animal skin.

The poem was dispersed and examined by the curator of the library. The curator found the poem to be a literary work of the highest quality. The poem is the finest Arthurian poem in the English language. This poem is regarding King Arthur’s court and the knights of the Round Table, more specifically their most famous knight Sir Gawain. The Gawain-poet knew Latin and French, which is where the poet encountered the source stories of the “Beheading Game,” “Temptation Story,” and “Exchange of Winnings.”

This poem is divided into four passus, passus I through IV. The poem consists of 101 irregular stanzas, and each stanza is concluded with what is referred to as the “bob” and “wheel.” The bob and wheel is a five-line rhyming group. The first line has one stress and is referred to as a bob. The four three stress lines that follow are referred to as a wheel. Each bob and wheel has a rhyming scheme of ABABA.

This poem was written in Middle English, more specifically Middle English with a dialect from the midlands of England closely associated with Germanic languages. The literary information provided will include “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” in Middle English, Modern English, and the poem will be summarized by etymologizing, searching for the historical definition of the words. The summary of the poem shall be in prose by passus and stanza.