...Mason Floyd ENGL 2220 Dr. Rhonda Sanford 7 November 2012 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Role of Honor Honor has ancient roots in the history of man, but few periods from our past stand in comparison to medieval times. During this time of kings and castles stood a value system spawned out of the sheer and intense belief of honor. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight excellently encapsulates this immense respect for an honorable and noble lifestyle. Chaucer endowed English literature of the time with foundation and became a fore-father of English poetry. “Chaucer was the first to conceive of poetry in English not as the product of an isolated, provincial nation located in an obscure corner of Europe but as a vital agent in the fourteenth-century emergence of the vernacular as a literary language” (Simon pg. 657). In each of the four fitts composing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one can easily interpret that Chaucer’s writing is developed on the basis of honor and a chivalrous approach to life. It takes no time in reading through the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to notice the relevance and importance of honor in the culture encompassing King Arthur’s time. While preparing to feast, King Arthur, his knights, and numerous other respectable individuals of the kingdom are seated not at random nor by age, but by honor. It seems as if an individual’s seat at this dinner, through honor, represents their social status in the...
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...life? • Set of rules which everyone/all needed to follow; there was a moral obligation to serve the “lord” in faith and/or valor (courage/bravery) • Follow a chain of command; respect for authority (Abbott and King of the court) • Establishes commitment within a community (religious or court/chivalric code) to bring unity • ? powers used to tempt or destroy o The Green Knight – the beheading game; Lady Bertilak at the castle (3 temptations/seductions); the green girdle o Rule of St. Benedict (Prologue lines 17?)...
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...Kayla Hinojosa English 2321 Short Paper (3/20) April 4, 2013 “Cultural values defined in ‘Beowulf’ and ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ ” The cultural values depicted in “Beowulf” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” are those of courage, honor, strength and humility among many others. Now, while exploring the ethos of the cultures in these pieces of literature the reader can deduce that each value means something different. What defines courage (and other values) in “Beowulf” differs from the definition of courage in “Sir Gawain” in many ways including the struggles Beowulf himself faced with Grendel, in “Sir Gawain” with the encounter with the lord’s wife, among other events in both poems. To begin with, in “Beowulf” these values are defined through the heroic code, which was held in the Anglo-Saxon culture in which this poem takes place. Beowulf himself is the definition of a “hero”, exemplifying values such as courage and strength. For example, one challenge that Beowulf held was the battle with Grendel. He shows exceptional strength when he is able to rip of Grendel’s arm which we see in the text itself, "The monster's whole body was in pain; a tremendous wound appeared on his shoulder. Sinews split and the bone-lapping’s burst. Beowulf was granted the glory of winning". The ability to cause so much physical pain to a giant monster shows just how powerful and strong Beowulf is. Strength here is sort of defined as physical power and ability rather than spiritual strength...
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...before the hero enters. Within the story, the green knight, the porter at the castle, and the guide that was with Gawain to show him where the green chapel was can all act as threshold guardians. Although the green knight presented the call, he still tested Gawain's ability before crossing the threshold into the unknown by presenting to him the beheading game. This game tested Gawain's stance as a knight and also started his journey. If he could not have successfully beheaded the green knight then he would have been unable to set about the journey in the first place. This therefore shows how the green knight can function as a threshold guardian. Likewise, the porter is a threshold guardian since at the castle he asked Bertilak if Gawain can cross the bridge in order to enter the castle. The other threshold guardian is the guide that was sent with Gawain to the green chapel. When the guide questioned him and asked if he was certain that he wanted to encounter the dangerous man that lies in the...
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...with the hero at his lowest point “in the middle of things”, earlier portions of the story appear later as flashbacks..) Main characterstics of novels are theme, plot or setting, structure, action or events in a sequence, strong characterization and expressive language. The genre of extended prose fiction or narrative fictional prose i.e. novel is rooted in the tradition of medieval "romances" or the heroic romance in prose. The term ‘roman or romance’ linked fictions back to the histories that had appeared in the Romance language of 11th and 12th-century southern France. The typical Arthurian romance became a fashion in the late 12th century. The unexpected and peculiar adventures surprised the audience in romances like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1380).The romance had become a stable generic term by the beginning of the 13th century, as in the Roman de la Rose (c. 1230), famous today in English through Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century translation. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1380–87) is a late example of this European fashion. Prose narrators wrote narrative patterns as employed in fairy tales and with complex plot structures, the work of Boccaccio and Chaucer share this model of construction with modern jokes, In the 14th and 15th centuries when prose legends became fashionable among the female urban elite, prose became the medium of the urban commercial book market in the 15th century. But the world of these romances had not much affinity with the actual...
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...Narrative A narrative is a sequence of events that a narrator tells in story form. A narrator is a storyteller of any kind, whether the authorial voice in a novel or a friend telling you about last night’s party. Point of View The point of view is the perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes. First-person narration: A narrative in which the narrator tells the story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as “I.” The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer. When the point of view represented is specifically the author’s, and not a fictional narrator’s, the story is autobiographical and may be nonfictional (see Common Literary Forms and Genres below). Third-person narration: The narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” • Omniscient narration: The narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters. For example, the narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story. • Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice. • Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts...
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...62118 0/nm 1/n1 2/nm 3/nm 4/nm 5/nm 6/nm 7/nm 8/nm 9/nm 1990s 0th/pt 1st/p 1th/tc 2nd/p 2th/tc 3rd/p 3th/tc 4th/pt 5th/pt 6th/pt 7th/pt 8th/pt 9th/pt 0s/pt a A AA AAA Aachen/M aardvark/SM Aaren/M Aarhus/M Aarika/M Aaron/M AB aback abacus/SM abaft Abagael/M Abagail/M abalone/SM abandoner/M abandon/LGDRS abandonment/SM abase/LGDSR abasement/S abaser/M abashed/UY abashment/MS abash/SDLG abate/DSRLG abated/U abatement/MS abater/M abattoir/SM Abba/M Abbe/M abbé/S abbess/SM Abbey/M abbey/MS Abbie/M Abbi/M Abbot/M abbot/MS Abbott/M abbr abbrev abbreviated/UA abbreviates/A abbreviate/XDSNG abbreviating/A abbreviation/M Abbye/M Abby/M ABC/M Abdel/M abdicate/NGDSX abdication/M abdomen/SM abdominal/YS abduct/DGS abduction/SM abductor/SM Abdul/M ab/DY abeam Abelard/M Abel/M Abelson/M Abe/M Aberdeen/M Abernathy/M aberrant/YS aberrational aberration/SM abet/S abetted abetting abettor/SM Abeu/M abeyance/MS abeyant Abey/M abhorred abhorrence/MS abhorrent/Y abhorrer/M abhorring abhor/S abidance/MS abide/JGSR abider/M abiding/Y Abidjan/M Abie/M Abigael/M Abigail/M Abigale/M Abilene/M ability/IMES abjection/MS abjectness/SM abject/SGPDY abjuration/SM abjuratory abjurer/M abjure/ZGSRD ablate/VGNSDX ablation/M ablative/SY ablaze abler/E ables/E ablest able/U abloom ablution/MS Ab/M ABM/S abnegate/NGSDX abnegation/M Abner/M abnormality/SM abnormal/SY aboard ...
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