Editing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (section)

==Themes==

=== Temptation and testing ===
[[Image:Leighton-God Speed!.jpg|thumb|Knights of ''Gawain's'' time were tested in their ability to maintain the [[chivalric code]] as well as the rules of [[courtly love]]. (''God Speed!'' – [[Edmund Blair Leighton#List of works|Edmund Blair Leighton]] 1900).]]
At the heart of ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is the test of Gawain's adherence to the code of chivalry. The typical [[temptation]] [[fable]] of [[medieval literature]] presents a series of tribulations assembled as tests or "proofs" of moral [[virtue]]. The stories often describe several individuals' failures after which the main character is tested.<ref name="kittsix">{{cite book |last1=Kittredge |first1=George Lyman |title=A study of Gawain and the Green Knight |date=1916 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780674598973 |page=76}}</ref> Success in the proofs will often bring immunity or good fortune. Gawain's ability to pass the tests of his host are of utmost importance to his survival, though he does not know it. It is only by fortuity or "instinctive-courtesy" that Sir Gawain can pass his test.{{sfn|Kittredge|1916|p=83}} Gawain does not realise, however, that these tests are all orchestrated by the lord, Bertilak de Hautdesert.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo |date=1975 |publisher=Allen & Unwin |location=London |isbn=9780048210357 |translator-last1=Tolkien |translator-first1=J. R. R. |page=92 |chapter=Sir Gawain and the Green Knight}}</ref>
In addition to the laws of chivalry, Gawain must respect another set of laws concerning courtly love. The [[knight]]'s code of honour requires him to do whatever a [[wikt:damsel|damsel]] asks. Gawain must accept the girdle from the Lady, but he must also keep the promise he has made to his host that he will give whatever he gains that day. Gawain chooses to keep the girdle out of fear of death, thus breaking his promise to the host but honouring the lady. Upon learning that the Green Knight is actually his host (Bertilak), he realises that although he has completed his quest, he has failed to be virtuous. This test demonstrates the conflict between honour and knightly duties. In breaking his promise, Gawain believes he has lost his honour and failed in his duties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burrow |first1=J. A. |title=A reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |date=1965 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |location=London |isbn=0-7100-8695-4 |page=162}}</ref>

===Hunting and seduction===
Scholars have frequently noted the parallels between the three hunting scenes and the three seduction scenes in ''Gawain''. They are generally agreed that the fox chase has significant parallels to the third seduction scene, in which Gawain accepts the girdle from Bertilak's wife. Gawain, like the fox, fears for his life and is looking for a way to avoid death from the Green Knight's axe. Like his counterpart, he resorts to trickery to save his skin. The fox uses tactics so unlike the first two animals, and so unexpectedly, that Bertilak has the hardest time hunting it. Similarly, Gawain finds the Lady's advances in the third seduction scene more unpredictable and challenging to resist than her previous attempts. She changes her evasive language, typical of courtly love relationships, to a more assertive style. Her dress, modest in earlier scenes, is suddenly voluptuous and revealing.<ref name = Burnley>{{cite journal| last1 = Burnley| first1 = J. D.| year = 1973| title = The Hunting Scenes in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' ".| journal = The Yearbook of English Studies| volume = 3| pages = 1–9| doi=10.2307/3506850| jstor = 3506850}}</ref>

The deer- and boar-hunting scenes are less clearly connected, although scholars have attempted to link each animal to Gawain's reactions in the parallel seduction scene. Attempts to connect the deer hunt with the first seduction scene have unearthed a few parallels. Deer hunts of the time, like courtship, had to be done according to established rules. Women often favoured suitors who hunted well and skinned their animals, sometimes even watching while a deer was cleaned.<ref name = Burnley/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ong |first1=Walter J. |title=The Green Knight's Harts and Bucks |journal=Modern Language Notes |date=December 1950 |volume=65 |issue=8 |pages=536–539 |doi=10.2307/2909298 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|jstor=2909298 }} The harts ({{lang|enm|hertteʒ}}) and hinds ({{lang|enm|hindeʒ}}) first described in the poem are probably [[red deer]], a species with large antlers like the [[elk|American elk]], while the subsequent bucks ({{lang|enm|bukkeʒ}}) and does ({{lang|enm|dos}}) likely refer to the smaller [[fallow deer]]. [[Roe deer]] are only referred to as "other deer" ({{lang|enm|oþer dere}}).</ref> The sequence describing the deer hunt is unspecific and nonviolent, with an air of relaxation and exhilaration. The first seduction scene follows in a similar vein, with no overt physical advances and no apparent danger; the entire exchange is humorously portrayed.<ref name = Burnley/>

The boar-hunting scene is, in contrast, laden with detail. Boars were (and are) much more difficult to hunt than deer; approaching one with only a sword was akin to challenging a knight to single combat. In the hunting sequence, the boar flees but is cornered before a ravine. He turns to face Bertilak with his back to the ravine, prepared to fight. Bertilak dismounts and in the ensuing fight kills the boar. He removes its head and displays it on a pike. In the seduction scene, Bertilak's wife, like the boar, is more forward, insisting that Gawain has a romantic reputation and that he must not disappoint her. Gawain, however, is successful in parrying her attacks, saying that surely, she knows more than he about love. Both the boar hunt and the seduction scene can be seen as depictions of a moral victory: both Gawain and Bertilak face struggles alone and emerge triumphant.<ref name = Burnley/>
Masculinity has also been associated with hunting. The theme of masculinity is present throughout. In an article by [[Vern Bullough|Vern L. Bullough]], "Being a Male in the Middle Ages," he discusses Sir Gawain and how normally, masculinity is often viewed in terms of being sexually active. He notes that Sir Gawain is not part of this normalcy.

===Nature and chivalry===
Some argue that nature represents a chaotic, lawless order which is in direct confrontation with the civilisation of Camelot throughout ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. The green horse and rider that first invade Arthur's peaceful halls are iconic representations of nature's disturbance.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Cawley |editor1-first=A. C. |title=Pearl. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |publication-place=London |publisher=Dent |year=1968 |oclc=17520073 |quote=...the Green Knight, ''alias''  Bertilak, is an immensely vital person who is closely associated with the life of nature: his greenness, the birds and flies of his decorative embroidery, his beard as great as a bush, the holly branch in his hand, the energy he displays as a huntsman-all give him kinship with the physical world outside the castle.}}</ref> Nature is presented throughout the poem as rough and indifferent, constantly threatening the order of men and courtly life. Nature invades and disrupts order in the major events of the narrative, both symbolically and through the inner nature of humanity. This element appears first with the disruption caused by the Green Knight, later when Gawain must fight off his natural lust for Bertilak's wife, and again when Gawain breaks his vow to Bertilak by choosing to keep the green girdle, valuing survival over virtue. Represented by the [[sin]]-stained girdle, [[nature]] is an underlying force, forever within man and keeping him imperfect (in a chivalric sense).<ref name = woodsw>{{cite journal |last1=Woods |first1=William F. |title=Nature and the Inner Man in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |journal=The Chaucer Review |date=2002 |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=209–227 |doi=10.1353/cr.2002.0006 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/8499 |jstor=25096166 |s2cid=170429103 }}</ref> In this view, Gawain is part of a wider conflict between nature and chivalry, an examination of the ability of man's order to overcome the chaos of nature.<ref name = rhg>{{Cite journal| issn = 0013-8304| volume = 29| issue = 2| pages = 121–139| last = Green| first = Richard Hamilton| title = Gawain's Shield and the Quest for Perfection| journal = ELH| date = 1962| doi = 10.2307/2871851| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/2871851| jstor = 2871851}}</ref>

Several critics have made exactly the opposite interpretation, reading the poem as a comic critique of the [[Religion in Medieval England|Christianity of the time]], particularly as embodied in the Christian chivalry of Arthur's court. In its zeal to extirpate all traces of [[Anglo-Saxon paganism|paganism]], Christianity had cut itself off from the sources of life in nature and the female. The green girdle represents all the pentangle lacks. The Arthurian enterprise is doomed unless it can acknowledge the unattainability of the ideals of the Round Table, and, for the sake of realism and wholeness, recognise and incorporate the pagan values represented by the Green Knight.<ref>This interpretation was first advanced by {{cite journal|author1-last=Speirs|author1-first=John|journal=Scrutiny|volume=16|year=1949|pages=274–300|title=Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight|isbn=9780521067928}} (and later incorporated in {{cite book|author1-last=Speirs|author1-first=John|title=Medieval English Poetry: The Non-Chaucerian Tradition|publisher=Faber and Faber|location=London|chapter=Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight|url=https://archive.org/details/medievalenglishp000573mbp|year=1957}}). Similar interpretations were later offered: 
* {{cite book|author1-last=Berry|author1-first=Francis|editor1-last=Ford|editor1-first=Boris|title=Volume I of the Pelican Guide to English Literature: The Age of Chaucer|year=1954|publisher=Penguin Books|location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70836| ol=5793249M | lccn=60004556 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Goldhurst |first1=William |title=The Green and the Gold: The Major Theme of Gawain and the Green Knight |journal=College English |date=November 1958 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=61–65 |doi=10.2307/372161 |jstor=372161 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |author1-last=Spearing |author1-first=A. C. |title=The Gwain-poet; a critical study |publisher=Cambridge [England] University Press |year=1970 |oclc=125992 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |author1-last=Davenport |author1-first=William Anthony |title=The Art of the Gawain-poet |publisher=Athlone Press |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-567-35802-8 |location=London |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |journal=The Haltwhistle Quarterly: An Irregular Review | author1-last=Tambling | author1-first=J. | title=A More Powerful Life: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | year=1981 | volume=9 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last1=Sagar |first1=Keith |title=Literature and the crime against nature: [from Homer to Hughes] |date=2005 |publisher=Chaucer Press |location=London |isbn=9781904449478 |chapter=Sir Gawain and the Green Girdle |ref=none}}</ref>

The chivalry that is represented within ''Gawain'' is one which was constructed by court nobility. The violence that is part of this chivalry is steeply contrasted by the fact that King Arthur's court is Christian, and the initial beheading event takes place while celebrating Christmas. The violence of an act of beheading seems to be counterintuitive to chivalric and Christian ideals, and yet it is seen as part of knighthood.<ref>{{cite journal| last1 = Martin| first1 = Carl Grey| year = 2009| title = The Cipher of Chivalry: Violence as Courtly Play in the World of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight| journal = The Chaucer Review| volume = 43| issue = 3| pages = 311–29| doi = 10.2307/25642113| jstor=25642113| s2cid = 161393222}}</ref>

The question of politeness and chivalry is a main theme during Gawain's interactions with Bertilak's wife. He cannot accept her advances or else lose his honour, and yet he cannot utterly refuse her advances or else risk upsetting his hostess. Gawain plays a very fine line and the only part where he appears to fail is when he conceals the green girdle from Bertilak.<ref>{{cite journal| last1 = Jucker| first1 = Andreas H.| year = 2015| title = Courtesy and Politness in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight| journal = Studia Anglica Posnaniensia| volume = 43| issue = 3| pages = 5–28| doi=10.1515/stap-2015-0007| doi-access = free}}</ref>

===Games===
The word {{lang|enm|gomen}} (game) is found 18 times in ''Gawain''. Its similarity to the word {{lang|enm|gome}} (man), which appears 21 times, has led some scholars to see men and games as centrally linked. Games at this time were seen as tests of worthiness, as when the Green Knight challenges the court's right to its good name in a "Christmas game".<ref name = game /> The "game" of exchanging gifts was common in Germanic cultures. If a man received a gift, he was obliged to provide the giver with a better gift or risk losing his honour, almost like an exchange of blows in a fight (or in a "beheading game").<ref>{{cite journal| last1 = Harwood| first1 = Britton J| year = 1991| title = Gawain and the Gift| journal = Publications of the Modern Language Association of America| volume = 106| issue = 3| pages = 483–99| doi=10.2307/462781| jstor = 462781| s2cid = 163844716| issn = 0030-8129 }}</ref> The poem revolves around two games: an exchange of beheading and an exchange of winnings. These appear at first to be unconnected. However, a victory in the first game will lead to a victory in the second. Elements of both games appear in other stories; however, the linkage of outcomes is unique to ''Gawain''.<ref name = norton /><ref name = Tolkien>{{cite book | editor1-last=Tolkien | editor1-first=J. R. R. | editor2-last=Gordon | editor2-first=E. V. | editor3-last=Davis | editor3-first=Norman | edition=2 | title=Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | chapter=Introduction | page=xv | publisher=Clarendon Press | publication-place=Oxford | year=1967 | isbn=978-0-19-811486-4 | oclc=352281}}</ref>

===Times and seasons===
Times, dates, seasons, and cycles within ''Gawain'' are often noted by scholars because of their symbolic nature. The story starts on New Year's Eve with a beheading and culminates one year later on the next New Year's Day. Gawain leaves Camelot on [[All Saints Day]] and arrives at Bertilak's castle on Christmas Eve. Furthermore, the Green Knight tells Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel in "a year and a day"—in other words, the next New Year's Day. Some scholars interpret the yearly cycles, each beginning and ending in winter, as the poet's attempt to convey the inevitable fall of all things good and noble in the world. Such a theme is strengthened by the image of [[Trojan War|Troy]], a powerful nation once thought to be invincible which, according to the ''[[Aeneid]]'', fell to the Greeks because of pride and ignorance. The Trojan connection shows itself in the presence of two nearly identical descriptions of Troy's destruction. The poem's first line reads: "Since the siege and the assault were ceased at Troy" and the final stanzaic line (before the bob and wheel) is "After the siege and the assault were ceased at Troy".<ref name = christian>{{cite journal| last1 = Clark| first1 = S. L.| last2 = Wasserman| first2 = Julian N.|author2-link= Julian N. Wasserman | year = 1986| title = The Passing of the Seasons and the Apocalyptic in ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''| journal = South Central Review| volume = 3| issue = 1| pages = 5–22| doi=10.2307/3189122| jstor = 3189122}}</ref>