W4 Literature - Questions on Sir Gawain

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Assignment 

Read pages 26-30 and answer the questions on page 31 in the next few slides (skip question 10).
You can answer the questions in your notebook and take pictures to post them here OR you write your answers on here. If you do that don't forget to save your answers before you submit them. 

1. How does Gawain behave towards the lady of the castle?

2. What is the most stirking aspect of the lady's behaviour?

3. Why does Gawain resist her advances?

4. Do you think that the lady's behaviour is in keeping with the context of the poem?
Why (not)?

Not only beautiful, but charming and persuasive, she is a formidable challenge for Gawain. She persistently tries to seduce him, insisting that he live up to his reputation as the most courteous knight and teach her the ways of courtly love. From Gawain's perspective, she is a temptress, but she is later shown to be a faithful wife, because she and Bertilak conspire to test Gawain. She is clearly in command during all of their conversations, and in a reversal of the usual patterns of courtly love, she is the one initiating the relationship. Her wit and skill at wordplay shine in these exchanges, but Gawain is equally skillful in evading her requests. Although she cannot make Gawain her lover, she finally manages to entice him into a breach of faith with her offer of her green silk belt. The lady shows considerable resourcefulness in finding the chink in Gawain's armor.

5. As described in the introduction, each stanza of the poem is ma eup of twenty to thirty alliterative lines, followed by four rhyming lines.
a. Identify the alliterative words in lines 1 to 15 (the first passage).
b. Which famous medieval/mediaeval poem is alliterative throughout?
c. Explain: in this poem, the four short rhyming lines are used as a cliffhanger.

The poem also uses rhyme to structure its stanzas, and each group of long alliterative lines concludes with a word or phrase containing two syllables and a quatrain—known together as the “bob and wheel.” The phrase “bob and wheel” derives from a technique used when spinning cloth—the bobs and wheels in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight help to spin the plot and narrative together in intricate ways. They provide commentaries on what has just happened, create or fulfill moments of suspense, and serve as transitions to the next scene or idea.

Each stanza ends with what is called a bob-and-wheel: The bob is a short, two- or three-syllable line that introduces four short, rhymed lines (the wheel). The last word of the bob begins the rhyming pattern for the wheel, so that the bob-and-wheel rhymes ABABA. The following is a modernized example from lines 1,040–1,045:

'As I am beholden thereto, in high and in low,

By right.' (A)

The lord fast can him pain (B)

To hold longer the knight. (A)

To him answers Gawain (B)

By no way that he might. (A)

6. How does Gawain behave when he meets the Green Knight?

7. What parallels are there between Gawain's encounter with the lady and his meeting with the Green Knight?

8. How is it that the Green Knight is able to recognise the belt Gawain is wearing?

9. The Green Knight thinks that Gawain is 'the most faultless warrior that wakls on foot'. Do you agree?

11. Can you explain why the Green Knight wanted to test Gawain and why he sent his wife to Gawain?

In reality the Green Knight wants to give Sir Gawain an opportunity to show his inner self. The Green Knight tests Sir Gawain by sending his own wife to seduce him, to check first of all, if he’ll bite the bait, and second, if he will be honest about it. And Sir Gawain does well twice when tested, but the third time, he fears more for his life than for guarding his honesty and lies to the Green Knight. The Green Knight takes into consideration that Sir Gawain has passed two out of three tests, and when the time comes for the blow of the axe, he pays Gawain back for his honesty by not striking but only nicks his neck for the one time that he has lied.