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The Author

The Author. The author of the poem is known only as “The Pearl Poet.” Written in northwestern England around 1370 The language and topics indicate that the author was most likely familiar with French , Latin , the aristocracy, and the medieval romance genre. Stages of a Medieval Romance.

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The Author

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  1. The Author • The author of the poem is known only as “The Pearl Poet.” • Written in northwestern England around 1370 • The language and topics indicate that the author was most likely familiar with French, Latin, the aristocracy, and the medieval romance genre.

  2. Stages of a Medieval Romance • Undertaking of a dangerous quest • Facing a test of honor or courage • A return to the point from which the quest began

  3. Poetic Devices • Heavy a-llllllllllll-iteration • Bob and Wheel verse: each section ends with a short line called a bob, followed by the wheel, which are longer lines that rhyme.

  4. Main Characters

  5. Sir Gawain How would you support the following statements? Gawain: • seeks to improve his inner self throughout the poem. • is humble and ambitious. • stands by his commitments no matter what. • fights fear with his desire to maintain integrity. • is a paragon of virtue. • values his own life more than his honesty. • believes that sins should be as visible as virtues. • is a round character.

  6. The Green Knight (also known as Bertilak de Hautdesert and the Host) How would you support the following statements? The Green Knight: • is a mysterious, supernatural, foreboding creature. • symbolizes the wildness, fertility, and death that characterize a primeval world. • part of his function is to establish a relationship between wilderness and civilization, past and present.

  7. Theories on the Meaning of the Color Green • fertility and rebirth • love • the devil or evil (from early English folklore) • death All are seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which could suggest a focus on the cycle of life or the transitions from good to evil. Why not money??

  8. ThemesThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

  9. Code Of Chivalry • To fear God and maintain His Church • To serve the liege lord in valor and faith • To protect the weak and defenseless • To give succor to widows and orphans • To refrain from the wanton giving of offence • To live by honor and for glory • To despise pecuniary reward • To fight for the welfare of all • To obey those placed in authority • To guard the honor of fellow knights • To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit • To keep faith • At all times to speak the truth • To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun • To respect the honor of women • Never to refuse a challenge from an equal

  10. The Letter of the Law vs. Spirit of the Law • Though the Green Knight refers to his challenge as a “game,” he repeatedly uses the word “covenant,” meaning a set of laws, a word that evokes the two covenants represented by the Old and the New Testaments. • The Old Testament details the covenant made between God and the people of Israel through Abraham, but the New Testament replaces the old covenant with a new covenant between Christ and his followers. • In 2 Corinthians 3:6, Paul writes that Christ has “a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

  11. How would you support the following statements? • The Green Knight at first seems concerned solely with the letter of the law. • At the poem's end, the covenant takes on a new meaning and resembles the less literal, more merciful New Testament covenant between Christ and his Church. • The Green Knight transforms his literal covenant by offering Gawain justice tempered with mercy, but the letter of the law still threatens in the story's background, and in Gawain's own psyche.

  12. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.

  13. Seasons At the beginning of Parts 2 and 4, the poet describes the changing of the seasons. How would you support the statements? • The changing seasons correspond to Gawain's changing psychological states. • The five changing seasons also correspond to the five ages of man (birth/infancy, youth, adulthood, middle age, and old age/death).

  14. Games • What “games” are played in this story? • The relationship between games and tests is explored because games are forms of social behavior, while tests provide a measure of an individual's inner worth.

  15. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

  16. The Pentangle • According to the Gawain-poet, King Solomon originally designed the five-pointed star as his own magic seal. • A symbol of truth, the star has five points that link and lock with each other, forming what is called the endless knot.

  17. The pentangle symbolizes the virtues to which Gawain aspires: • to be faultless in his five senses; • never to fail in his five fingers; • to be faithful to the five wounds that Christ received on the cross; • to be strengthened by the five joys that the Virgin Mary had in Jesus (the Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, Ascension, and Assumption); • to possess brotherly love, courtesy, piety, and chastity.

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