Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Analysis
Sir Gawain and the Green -.night is a late fourteenth century metrical romance. It is acclaimed by many as the finest representative of Arthurian romance literature in English. The poem comes to us from one source only, a manuscript in the Cotton Collection in the British Museum, Nero A. X. The poet has contrived that Sir Gawain's adventures take place in a poetic world carefully structured with respect to time and place. We learn of the adventure from a narrator ostensible outside of this poetic world. The focus of my discussion of Sir Gawain is on these three aspects of the romance: the narrator, time and place. The purpose of the discussion is to show the interrelations of the three in the actual working out of the narrative and in terms of the ninefold division of the manuscript.
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