The Pentangle: Guiding Star for the Gawain-Poet
1980; University of California; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1557-0290
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Studies of British Isles
ResumoTHE PENTANGLE: G U I D I N G S T A R FOR T H E GA WAIN-POET Ann Derrickson The pentangle i n Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has frequently drawn critical comment because it represents a deviation from convention. I n other tales Gawain's emblem is a griffin or an eagle, and the anomalous use here o f the five-pointed star seems to bear an intentional relationship to the author's individual conception. The well-known fact o f the Gawain-poet's literary sophistication, that is, his careful habits o f composition and his awareness o f traditions, contributes to this theory that the geometrical form is meant to harmonize with the poetic design. Gawain critics have already analyzed some o f the conceptual issues that the symbol helps to structure, such as the balance which it fixes between the values o f Christian and c o u r t l y love, values to which knights o f the later medieval romances are supposed to adhere and for which the hero o f the poem undergoes testing. One scholar has even carried the investigation of the emblem into a study o f numerical aspects o f verse construction. N o one, however, has yet considered a correspondence with the narrative design o f the work as a whole. Since it is commonly believed that the Gawain-poel also wrote Pearl, reference to the lapidary patterning i n the latter strengthens the theory, which I am proposing, that a single image is intended to give poetic unity to each work. I t has been generally accepted that the flawed jewel which provides Pearl w i t h its title also gives the poem its form, that o f an endless r o u n d with one structural fault near the middle, and the image See Robert J . Blanch, ed.. Sir Gawain and Pearl: Critical Essays (Bloomington and Marie BorrofT, Sir Gawain and the Green L o n d o n : Indiana University Press, 1966); Knight: A Stylistic and Metrical Study (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962); M o t h e r Angela C a r s o n , T h e G r e e n C h a p e l : Its M e a n i n g and Its F u n c t i o n , Studies in Philology 60 (1963): 598-605; George L . Kittredge, A Study of Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916; reprint ed. G l o u c e s t e r , Mass.: Peter S m i t h , 1960). A . K e n t Hieatt, Sir Gawain: Pentangle, Luf-Lace, N u m e r i c a l Structure, Papers on Language and Literature 4 (1968): 339-59.
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