Editing Gawain (section)

===Attributes and characterizations===
[[File:Song of Courtesy.png|thumb|upright|[[John Tenniel]]'s illustration for "The Song of Courtesy", [[George Meredith]]'s take on Gawain and the Loathly Lady published in ''[[Once a Week (magazine)|Once a Week]]'' magazine in 1859]]

Traditionally, Gawain, of all Arthur's knights, is known for his courteousness, compassion, and humility. In ''Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy and His Appearance in Chaucer's Squire's Tale'', B. J. Whiting collected quantitative evidence of these qualities being stronger in Gawain than in any of the other [[Knights of the Round Table]], counting the words "courteous", "courtesy", and "courteously" being used in reference to Arthur's nephew as 178 times in total, more than for all the other knights in Arthurian literature.<ref name="Whiting, p. 218">Whiting, p. 218.</ref> The [[Lancelot-Grail|Prose ''Lancelot'']] describes Gawain as the most handsome of his brothers and notably gracious towards poor people and to societal outcasts such as lepers; the one time when he fails to properly greet an unknown maiden ([[Lady of the Lake|Viviane]]) while on a quest to learn the fate of [[Merlin]] in the Vulgate ''Merlin Continuation'', she curses him with a spell that turns him into a hideous dwarf, but later restores him to his real form after he passes a test to save her from an apparent rape in an arranged "damsel in distress"-style scenario. In some versions of the legend, Gawain would have been the true and rightful heir to the throne of Camelot, after the reign of King Arthur.<ref name="Day 1994 365–366" /><ref name="hall p.3">Hall, p. 3.</ref>

The Vulgate ''Mort Artu'' says Gawain had been baptised as an infant by a miracle-working holy man, also named Gawain. The other Gawain named the boy after himself, and who announced the following day that every day at noon, at the hour of the baptism, his power and strength would increase. His recurring status of a solar hero, as well as some of his other traits and adventures, especially within the variants of the Green Knight tale, suggest that Gawain may have been originally a Welsh counterpart of the Irish mythology hero [[Cú Chulainn]], and also led to scholarly hypothesis according to which Gawain's figure could be derived from a Celtic sun god or perhaps a son of such deity.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=guPg1ZoPV1wC&pg=PA291|title=The Works of the Gawain-poet|first=Charles|last=Moorman|date=22 April 1976|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9781604735277 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v7GDBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA36|title=Malory's Anatomy of Chivalry: Characterization in the Morte Darthur|first=Paul|last=Rovang|date=5 November 2014|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9781611477795 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQaxAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA146|title=The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry|first=Peter|last=Robinson|date=26 September 2013|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-959680-5 |via=Google Books}}</ref> The Post-Vulgate narration tells how, in great part due to his supernatural strength, there have been only six knights whom Gawain failed to defeat in a sword fight: Lancelot, [[Hector de Maris|Hector]], [[Sir Bors|Bors]], his own brother Gaheris (replaced with Percival by Malory), [[Tristan]], and [[Sir Morholt|Morholt]]. In ''Perceval'' and some other later stories, he is the other wielder of Arthur's magic sword [[Excalibur]]; in the Alliterative ''Morte Arthure'', he has a sword named Galuth, which bears the name Galatine in Malory's version of the Roman War episode. His knowledge of herbs also makes him a great healer,<ref>Whiting, p. 194.</ref> as shown in Chrétien's ''Perceval'', ''Valvens Þáttr'', ''Parzival'', ''Walewein'', and the Dutch [[Lancelot Compilation]] (in the stories ''Moriaen'', ''Die Riddere metter Morwen'', ''Walewein ende Keye'', and ''Lancelot en het Hert met de Witte Voet'').

[[File:John Pettie (1839-1893) - The Vigil - N01582 - National Gallery.jpg|thumb|''The Vigil'' by [[John Pettie]] (1884)|alt=|left]]

In many romances, Gawain is depicted as a model for chivalric attributes.<ref name="Harper, p. 2" /> In ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', for example, where he is described as "this fine father of breeding",<ref>JRR Tolkien translation, ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' (London 1995) p. 44.</ref> Gawain receives the kisses of [[Lady Bertilak]] with discretion, at once not wanting to insult her by refusing her advances and not wanting to betray the hospitality of her husband.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=gV84AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA295 ''The Story of King Arthur and His Knights'']. Retrieved 7 November 2012.</ref> Based on the bargain to give each other their respective daily gains, Gawain must give the kisses he receives from Lady Bertilak to Sir [[Green Knight|Bertilak]]. This allusion serves to reinforce chivalric ideals of religious, martial, and courtly love codes, especially in a masculine warrior culture, and shows the ways in which the masculine world can be subverted by female wiles.<ref>Boyd, David L. "Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". ''Arthuriana''. (Summer 1998) 8.2 pp.&nbsp;77–113.</ref> This undertone of homoeroticism between Gawain and Sir Bertilak underscores the strength of male homosocial bonds, and the fact that sex never occurs reinforces ideals of the masculine chivalric code.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fisher|first=Sheila|author2=Janet E. Halley |title=Seeking the Women in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essays in Feminist Contextual Criticism|publisher=U of Tennessee Press|location=Knoxville|year=1989|page=277|isbn=978-0-870-495915}}<!--|access-date=18 November 2014--></ref> Gawain's character in the poem is said to be founded on a deep Christian belief in Christ and the [[Mary, mother of Jesus|Virgin Mary]].<ref>"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Translated by Simon Armitage. ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature''. Edited by Julie Reidhead. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. Lines 642–647.</ref>

Conversely, in the Vulgate ''Queste del Saint Graal'' he is used as a very symbol of the unfitness of secular knighthood. Here, Gawain is blamed for his irreligion and is shown to indulge in rather purposeless killing: as, for example, when he mortally wounds his relative and a fellow Knight of the Round Table, [[Yvain the Bastard]], in one of the many random jousting duels for no particular reason (failing to even recognise him until it is too late). He is also responsible for the deaths of more of his fellow Round Table companions, including the young King Bagdemagus of Gorre, whom he accidentally kills during a tournament. The Vulgate ''Mort Artu'' even says Gawain had killed some of his fellow Knights of the Round Table in the grand quest for the Grail, which he turned out to be unworthy to achieve. When Gawain does reach the [[Corbenic|Grail Castle]], he is unable to restore the Grail Sword, unlike his role in ''Perceval'', and is actually more interested in the [[Elaine of Corbenic|Grail Maiden]] than in the holy relic, failing to even spot it there. In a symbolic later scene, it is her son and the new destined Grail hero, the blessed virgin knight [[Galahad]], who will draw the [[Excalibur|sword in the stone]] at Camelot, after Gawain failed in the task. In the end, Gawain's unwillingness to forgive Lancelot leads to his own death and contributes to the downfall of Arthur's kingdom.

[[File:Nevertheless You, O Sir Gauwaine, Lie.png|thumb|upright|"Nevertheless You, O Sir Gauwaine, Lie." [[Florence Harrison]]'s illustration for ''Early Poems of William Morris'' (1914)]]

In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Gawain's character is further blackened, influenced by being portrayed as a villain in the Prose ''Tristan''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IwwNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA56|title = Studies in Medieval Literature and Languages: In Memory of Frederick Whitehead|isbn = 9780719005503|last1 = Rothwell|first1 = William|year = 1973| publisher=Manchester University Press }}</ref> He is now bloodthirsty and often murderous. Among important Knights of the Round Table whom Gawain is said to have killed during and after the Grail quest are King Pellinor's son [[Aglovale]], King Lac's son [[Erec]], and King [[Esclabor]]'s son [[Palamedes (Arthurian legend)|Palamedes]] (resulting in Escablor's own death from grief). Earlier, Gawain and his brothers are also the slayers of King Pellinor and his sons [[Knights of the Round Table#Drian|Driant]] and [[Lamorak|Lamorat]]. Although Gawain still has a reputation for being one of the best and most courteous knights in the world, this is a sham, as he is often secretly a rapist of damsels and a killer of good knights, no better than his brother Agravain. When the mighty and holy Grail knight Perceval asks Gawain if he had killed his father Pellinor, Gawain simply lies and denies it out of fear of Perceval. The ''Guiron le Courtois'' section of ''[[Palamedes (romance)|Palamedes]]'' explains Gawain's many great cruelties being caused by his grief at being surpassed by other knights after not regaining his full strength following the war with [[Galehaut]]. Such a new popular image originating in the late Old French romance tradition prompted the historical audience of ''[[The Wife of Bath's Tale]]'' to identify the story's rapist-knight character as Gawain.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IsFTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA63|title=Later Middle English Literature, Materiality, and Culture: Essays in Honor of James M. Dean|last1=Gastle|first1=Brian|last2=Kelemen|first2=Erick|year=2018|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|language=en|isbn=978-1611496772}}</ref> B. J. Whiting writes in ''Gawain: A Casebook'':

{{Quote box|align=center|There would be no point in summarizing the ''Tristan'', but some examples of Gawain's depravity must be cited. He is a traitor; he is unfair, cowardly and cruel in battle; he was once good but is so no longer; he is one of the worst knights in the world; he kills out of hate, envy or to get possession of a woman; he is rebuked by Gaheriet, Tristram, and Driant; he is defeated or discomfited by Arthur, Belinant, Blioberis, Brehus, Driant, Erec, Lamorat, Palamedes, Perceval and Tristram; he kills, usually treacherously, Bademagus, Driant, Erec, Lamorat, Meraugis, Pellinor, and Yvain l'Avoutre; he is cavalier toward the quest of the Grail; he hates Lamorat, first, because he fears that Lamorat may discover that he had killed Pellinor, second, because Lamorat defeats him, and third, because Lamorat is having an affair with his mother; he throws Lamorat's head down on the path after cutting it off; he is worse than Breuz-sans-Pitie [...] Surely an abundance of evil for one small man to perform! [[Frederic Madden|Madden]] considered the ''Tristan'' mainly responsible for Gawain's ill fame, and although [[Jessie Weston (scholar)|Miss Weston]] thought that the ''Queste'' might well be the culprit, if sheer weight of calumny be any criterion, then we must agree with Madden. After the ''Tristan'', indeed, the remaining prose romances seem to direct no more than pin-pricks at Gawain.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9R8HDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA63 | title=Gawain: A Casebook | isbn=9781136783524 | last1=Busby | first1=Keith | last2=Thompson | first2=Raymond H. | date=8 November 2005 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref>|}}

Malory's Gawain, following the later French prose depictions, also "emerges as a character composed of obvious inconsistencies of virtue and evil."<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/373611|jstor = 373611|title = The Thematic Function of Malory's Gawain|last1 = Bartholomew|first1 = Barbara Gray|journal = College English|year = 1963|volume = 24|issue = 4|pages = 262–267|doi = 10.2307/373611}}</ref> Nevertheless, according to Arthurian scholar Ryan Harper, considering Gawain's many varied (and for most part positive) medieval portrayals,

{{Quote box|align=center|Gawain may perhaps best be described as the Arthurian [[everyman]], a character who often functions on a very human scale, failing and succeeding, but learning and progressing as well. It is this last that is perhaps most important in any overall consideration of Gawain as character. Sometimes he is the best knight, and sometimes not, but even as he fails he can learn from his mistakes, and sometimes becomes a better knight because of them. Ultimately, it may be this unusual capacity for character development, rooted in but not limited to his familial relationship with Arthur, that has made Gawain such a prominent figure in the Arthurian pantheon.<ref>{{cite web |first=Ryan |last=Harper |title=Gawain |url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/theme/gawain |website=The Camelot Project, University of Rochester |access-date=26 January 2022}}</ref>}}