FratFiles

• Save Paper

Women, Courtly Love and the Creation Myth in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight


Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a great epic written in fourteenth century Europe by the Pearl poet, emphasizes the opposition of Christian love to Courtly love in the 13th century through the dilemma of Sir Gawain, one of the great knights of the Arthurian round table. By examining the women in the poem, Gawain's dilemma becomes a metaphor for the contrast of these two distinct types of love. The poem looks upon the Virgin Mary as the representative of spiritual love, obedience, chastity, and life (Warner 9). In contrast, Morgan le Fay and Bertilak's wife appear to be representing courtly love, disobedience, lust and death. This conflict between courtly love and spiritual love demonstrates the drastically weakened religious values behind chivalry. An interesting parallel to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the story of original sin in the Garden of Eden. Gawain's temptation correlates to......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 1681
Approximate Pages: 7 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight: Test Of One Knight's Chivalric...
   

   Sir Gawain And The Green Knight: Test Of One Knight's Chivalric Attrib Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Test of One Knight's Chivalric Attributes Loyalty, courage, honor, purity,

2. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
   

   sir gawain and the green knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Although there have been countless knights over the course of the Middle Ages, to this day still there are few who

3. Sir Gawain &Amp; The Green Knight
   

   Sir Gawain & The Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight A knight rides into the hall dressed entirely in green. The knight is large, well- dressed, and imposing, but he does

4. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight: &Quot;Three&Quot;
   

   Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: "Three" A recurrent theme in almost all works of Old English involves the presence of the number "three". Just as Beowulf fought the dragon in

5. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
   

   Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Sir Gawain Faces Temptation Sir Gawain was known as a noble and honest man who was willing to stare death in the