Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The lady’s attempts to seduce Gawain reveal the reasons for the poem’s skepticism of certain elements of chivalry. As the lady frames the expected interaction between a knight and a lady, Gawain is all but obliged to succumb to her advances: “‘[T]is the very title and text of their deeds, / How bold knights for beauty have braved many a foe” (1516-1517). In this passage, the lady refers to the concept of “courtly love”—in essence, a knight’s unwavering devotion to a highborn and, usually, married lady. This idea of courtly love was gradually folded into the broader chivalric code over the course of the Middle Ages; in many works, courtly love is described as having an elevating effect on the knight, as his love for the lady inspires him to greater heights of courage, honor, and loyalty.

The notion of courtly love, however, also gives rise to obvious problems, at least to the extent that the love is sexual in nature; consummating the relationship would mean violating both Christian law and the feudal hierarchy, since the lady’s husband is in all likelihood the knight’s lord. Gawain is acutely aware of these social dynamics, and he must therefore strike a delicate balance between paying the lady the appropriate compliments while also rejecting her sexual overtures: “His courtesy concerned him, / lest crass he appear, / But more his soul’s mischief, should he commit sin / And belie his loyal oath to the lord of that house” (1773-1775).

Ultimately, Gawain succeeds in resisting the lady’s attempted seduction only to succumb to a different temptation: the protection afforded by the lady’s green girdle. There are hints that this temptation has, in fact, been the real test all along. The juxtaposition of the lord’s hunting and his wife’s “hunting” might seem purely symbolic, but in accepting the girdle, Gawain proves to be similar to the deer, boar, and fox in a very literal way: like them, he acts from an instinctive fear of death. The girdle’s green color underscores this point, implying that even the human “pattern and paragon” (913) of “courage ever-constant, and customs pure” (912) are as much a part of the natural world as any other animal.

The appearance of the girdle also foreshadows the true identity of the lord when he reveals himself to be Lord Bertilak, since the Green Knight also wore green clothes embroidered in gold. This parallel raises the question of the lord’s own relationship to nature. In contrast to the Green Knight, Lord Bertilak appears quite “civilized”; he is a generous and courteous host, a devout Christian, and a very obviously wealthy man, as evidenced by the poet’s lavish descriptions of the castle and its furnishings. Gawain’s room, for instance, sports a bed canopied in silk and “[w]oven rugs on the walls of the eastern work” (858)—imported, presumably, at some expense. The presence of the rugs suggests that it is possible for human’s “animal” nature to exist alongside cultural and moral refinement.