Fabulous Beasts Update -- Gawain and the Meta Lady

[radiantfracture]

I'm working on "Gawain and the Green Knight" for the Fabulous Beasts course -- reading around The Hobbit and into Tolkien's literary preoccupations. With Beowulf, the unified theme so far is "odd people unexpectedly showing up at dinner tend to make a mess." Blood, dozens of dead warriors, threatened teacups. Also Nature, Strangers, Others, etc.

I think I'll compare the Armoring Scenes, since Bilbo comes away so completely unready compared to the hysterically overdressed Gawain.

Since I'm using Simon Armitage's translation, it made sense to watch his BBC special on "Gawain", which I enjoyed, though there were a lot of not entirely explicable shots of splashing water -- waves, waterfalls, rivers -- despite such bodies not appearing all that often in the poem.

I quite enjoyed this talk on the poem. The lecture is mostly an overview with some interesting background on the surrounding literature (other Gawain tales), and an occasional look-in from the speaker's own thesis that the poem reflects the emergence of contract law. Listening to other people's lectures while doodling is not a bad way to harvest insight. See my entire undergrad.

I think I can do quite a bit on gender in "Gawain", which pleases. The paired hunts give plenty of scope.

Speaking of the hunt -- I am pleased with myself for noticing one way the Gawain Poet¹ is formally artful.

Asyouknowarthur, "Gawain" is written in alliterative verse. You get a big block of unrhymed lines full of alliterative shimmering, and then a little knot of rhyme at the end of each chunk. This knot, known as the bob and wheel, closes, summarizes, or comments on the action.

The poem is divided into four sections, or fitts. Fitt 3 describes the three days of hunting leading up to Gawain's final trial in the Green Chapel. The Lord Bertilak hunts first deer, then a boar, then a fox; back in the castle, his wife hunts Gawain, using the rules of courtly love to try to bring him to bay, while he dodges and leaps with supple courtesy.

The poem cuts back and forth between scenes from the two hunts -- highly visual, cinematic, with much dramatic irony.

On the first day, scenes of the two hunts alternate in separate stanzas (or series of stanzas). Sometimes there's a little carry-over at the beginning of a section, a transition, but not at the end.

On the second day, the wife's hunt suddenly appears in the bob and wheel of the husband's stanza.

On the third day, her scene cuts right into the middle of his stanza and takes over.

Folks, I like this convergence so much. Not only does it accelerate the action and make us feel ambushed by the story, as Gawain is startled by the lady; it also gives her a kind of formal power to mess with the structure of the poem itself. She's like one of those marginal illustrations in an illuminated manuscript, sticking her arms right into the lines to correct them. It's doubly fitting because her weapons are words and rules of conduct, like the rules of a poem.

{rf}

1. Or the Pearl Poet, if you must.

Comments

[sovay]

She's like one of those marginal illustrations in an illuminated manuscript, sticking her arms right into the lines to correct them. It's doubly fitting because her weapons are words and rules of conduct, like the rules of a poem.

I hope you say exactly this in class, because it's beautiful.

[cosmolinguist]

Agreed! Such a vivid image.

[radiantfracture]

Cheers -- I'm hoping I can find such an illustration to show them.

[cmcmck]

Gawain is fabulous! My first degree was in early English lit. That was before I caught history! :o)

[radiantfracture]

How awesome! What did you focus on?

[anne]

Bele conjointure! I did medieval French lit, so I haven't read this one in forever...but does Gawain evade the lady like a deer, a boar, and a fox?

[radiantfracture]

It's so tempting, right? Maybe I could use that as a close reading exercise.

[highlyeccentric]

there's a LOT of scholarship on this. I personally think it's a deliberate dead end on the part of the poet (forcing you to look for //s that don't come to anything), but many people more erudite think so!

The // I like to focus on is one which my students summarised a few weeks ago as "both hunting and courtly flirting are things you do by the book" - and Bertilak DOES do everything by the book (except for the weirdly degrading rather than increasing status of his kills), but does Gawain? (yes? no? yes but? JURY REMAINS OUT)

[radiantfracture]

I did a brief close reading / comparison of the three scenes and found maybe a few general resonances? Deer and knight both taking the high ground? Not sure if that metaphor was in operation c. 1400.

I've wondered about the hunts since the first time I read the poem in Grade 12. That, I feel like there must be some reason for. But nobody knows?

(Edges closer to medieval lit scholar whispering) Any reading recommendations?

[highlyeccentric]

Do you have institutional library access? (if not, i can email you articles, but not books)

I'll look up my bibliographies at work today. My first recommendation for pursuing the allegorical reading is Edward of Norwich's Master of Game, large sections of a translation of which on googlebooks. (I think there's a version on wikisource, too) There's good stuff on hunting generally in the Handbook of Medieval Culture v 2, also on googlebooks.

[radiantfracture]

Do you have institutional library access?

I do! I have not one, but two -- my current institution and my alma mater. The greater scope belongs to the latter.

Thanks for these links -- the Handbook looks, well, handy.

[highlyeccentric]

HERE ARE SOME CITATIONS:

on hunting:
Putter, Ad. ‘The Ways and Words of the Hunt: Notes on "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Master of Game, Sir Tristrem, Pearl," and "Saint Erkenwald"’. The Chaucer Review 40.4 (2006) 354-385.

on sex and gender and stuff:

Lawrence Warner, ‘Mary, Unmindful of Her Knight: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Traditions of Sexual Hospitality’, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 235 (2013) 263-287 [Discussion of SGCC and sex hospitality in general begins p. 277]

Rowley, Sharon M. ‘Textual Studies, Feminism and Performance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.’ The Chaucer Review 38.2 (2003) 158-177.

Fisher, Sheila. "Taken Men and Token Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Essay in Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings, pp. 71-105.

Heng, Geraldine, ‘Feminine Knots and the Other Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. PMLA 106.3. 1991. 500-514. (this one is good for thinking about morgan)

Boyd, David L, 'Sodomy, Misogyny and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. Arthuriana 8.2 (1998) 7-113

I'll follow up on the other thread later today!

[highlyeccentric]

Oh, the square brackets in the Warner citation are left over from a syllabus - I was teaching Sir Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle. You might want to skip straight to that bit anyway - the point about maré (Mary) vs mare (more) is SUPER INTERESTING but not worth pursuing if you're teaching in translation.

[radiantfracture]

This is such a brilliant list I may have to write a paper myself just to do it justice.

It would be nice to work in just a hoarse whisper of queer theory.

[highlyeccentric]

Actually can I ask what sort of courses you teach? I think I had you confused with someone who taught ESL, and then for a while I thought you were teaching high school, and now I'm thinking uni level? But not specialist English major courses?

[radiantfracture]

Right, yes.

Don't let my simple fables confuse you. This is a first-year college-level intro-to-literature course. I thought The Hobbit was both sort-of-current because of the films and really useful in providing a gateway to medieval texts via the mind of Tolkien.

[radiantfracture]

Ok, the medieval hunting book is incredibly sexy.

Does it hold the secret to the weird order of the Three Hunts?

[highlyeccentric]

No but the Ad Putter article might.

[shewhomust]

What an excellent reading! I like this so much...

[radiantfracture]

Thanks! If only I can finish my background reading in time.

[shewhomust]

There is no end to background reading - and I'm not even going to say 'alas!'. Sooner or later you stop (unless you don't).

[larryhammer]

I prefer Gawain Poet, thank you.

Nice structural observation -- I had not noticed that.

[radiantfracture]

I prefer Gawain Poet, thank you.

ME TOO.

Or wait -- are you admitting to being the author?

[larryhammer]

Not himself -- I just write fic.

[radiantfracture]

OMG alliterative fic. With citations.

[highlyeccentric]

You know, I've been reading gender scholarship on SGGK for a literal DECADE (hit me up if you want recs/cites) and i've never noticed that about the stanza structure. Specifically, I don't recall it ever being mentioned in Heng's Feminine Knots, which... UGH. Really encapsulates my frustrations with her analytical style. But I can't think of anyone else who's built that in to their reading either! HUH. (I mean. I'll double-check because i don't trust Simon Armitage - but stanza divisions tend to be consistent from translation to translation)

[radiantfracture]

I'm not a great reader of Middle English, but it -- looks pretty close?

[al_zorra]

Thank you so much for his. Everything about and around this magnificent work is fascinating and thought provoking.

[radiantfracture]

It is great fun to come back to it after so long.

[al_zorra]

It is fun, coming back to old loves that one never fell out of love with, but got distracted by new explorations. The new explorations provide new perspectives and penetration too. Gawain, it seems, is almost made for this.

[radiantfracture]

Gawain, it seems, is almost made for this.

You are absolutely right, in ways I had not suspected until actual medieval scholars and historians (and gifted amateurs) got into the conversation.

How did you encounter Sir Gawain?

[al_zorra]

I can't even remember, because I encountered Arthur and the Matter of Britain already before I could read.

But I do recall certainly sections of SGATGK in my high school English classes, but I can't recall if they were assigned or not. However I have combined under and grad degrees in English Literature and History.

As well, after we moved to NYC as babes in the wood, for some years it was an annual Christmas celebration at a bar-restaurant owned by a friend to do round robin readings alternating between the Middle English and the English translation by Tolkien for several evenings before and after Christmas. Those were the days!

[radiantfracture]

Ah, I'm jealous (in a pleasantly wistful way) of all those things. The Christmas readings sound gorgeous. Did you sit at a round table?

I haven't any historical background myself, and I feel the lack of it in trying to build context for students, to help them at least imagine themselves into the readings.

[al_zorra]

There were people sitting at the bar and around the edge of the dining room. The readers had their tables in the middle.

It wasn't nearly as formal as this might sound. It was situated in the oldest, continuous operating bar in NYC, on what then (colonial Dutch and English NY, and then the Independence era) was the docks, a seaman's and other of the motley crew of vagrants, free and self-emancipated blacks, new immigrants, pirates and smugglers place. Lots of Irish, own by an Irish heritage fellow, with a long time set of old regulars, not the gentrifying sorts such as ourselves, from SoHo and the art world(s). And drinking was going on, by all. It got rrrrrrrrrraucus at times, one might say. Good times were had by all, and nobody's good time interfered with anyone else's good time. :) And it was the holidays . . . .