A Study of Gawain and the Green Knight.
1918; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2915365
ISSN2326-1978
AutoresKirby Flower Smith, George Lyman Kittredge,
Tópico(s)Medieval Literature and History
ResumoKing Arthur is holding court at Camelot in the Christmas season.New Year's Day has come and the feast is ready.But Arthur himself will not touch food until all the company is served; for it is his custom never to eat on such a high day until he has heard some strange tidings or some adventure has happened.1 Everybody else is seated, but the king remains standing before the high table .Suddenly there enters the hall on horseback a huge knight, splendidly attired, and armed only with a battle-axe.His face, hair, and beard, his coat and mantle, his horse and its accoutrements, are all green, and in one hand he bears a holly bough, " that is greatest in green when groves are bare."Riding up to the dais, he challenges the court to contend with him in a Christmas game:he will take a blow with the axe without resistance, provided that, a twelvemonth and a day hence, his oppo- nent will receive from him a stroke in return.Everybody hesitates, and the stranger taunts the knights with cowardice: " What, is this Arthur's house, that is so renowned in many realms ?Where is your pride now?Where are your conquests, your valor, and your great words ?Now are the splendor and the renown of the Round Table overcome by the words of one man's speech!" Arthur springs for-1We must therefore 1 The romance of Humbaut contains both the Challenge and a form of the Temptation, but the two episodes are not combined.THE IRISH VERSIONS 9 study them separately, in the first instance, before we can understand the changes to which they have been sub- jected in this special combination.The study is not unin- teresting for its own sake, and it may throw some light on the narrative technique of the middle ages.The Challenge has already been examined with more or less care by several scholars, but the importance of the Temptation seems not to have been sufficiently recognized. H. THE CHALLENGE; OR, THE BEHEADING GAMEThe Irish VersionsOur study of the extraordinary tale known as TJheJBehead- ing Game -or, as we have agreed to call it, for brevity,The Challengeis much facilitated by a fortunate chance which enables us, in a manner, to begin at the beginning instead of working back to a purely hypothetical source.The Challenge is not only extant in several Old French documents; it is also preserved in Middle Irish in a highly developed literary form, essentially identical, even in de- tails, with the shape which it takes in Gawain and the Green Knight.We may be certain, therefore, that the incident is Celtic, and that it somehow passed from Irish literature into French.The details of this process are not altogether clear, but the main fact admits of no dispute, and affords a firm basis for our investigation.In calling the Challenge story " Celtic," I do not mean to assert that the mere inci- dent, in its elements or its simplest form, actually originated on Celtic soil.Such a proposition would be equally gratui- tous and venturesome.What is certain is that, long before the earliest date which can be assigned to any conceivable French work embodying this incident in its developed form, GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT this developed form existed, in literary shape, in Ireland.In other words, the Challenge in the form in which it appears in Old French and Middle English literature, is unquestion- ably of Celtic origin.More than this the conditions of the investigation do not require one to postulate.The Irish story bears the separate and distinct title of The Champion's Bargain, 1 and occurs as the concluding adventure in the great epic saga of Fled Brier end, or Bricriu'sFeast.The subject of this saga is the contention of the three most distinguished champions of Ulster for the curathmir or " hero's portion "a special ration or allowance assigned to the preeminent warrior at feasts.The manuscript that contains Bricriu's Feast, the famous Lebor na hUidre (or Book of the Dun Cow) , was written at the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century (the scribe of this portion of the Fled Bricrend was killed in 1106), and the saga itself is much older than the manuscript.The Champion's Bargain is incomplete in the Lebor na hUidre, on account of the mutilation of the manuscript, but enough of it is there preserved to warrant our accepting the complete text contained in a later manuscript as an accurate reproduction of the story in every particular.2The adventure must
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