ENG 2105 Lecture : Class 09_ October 11th, 2018
Document Summary
Class 9: manuscripts & gawain and the green knight. Either comes to us from 1360 or 1390. The reader of either of those two dates would have been familiar with the arthurian story world and the author of the text relies on the audience"s knowledge of arthurian court. Gawain is arthur"s nephew and is shown as the representative of arthur"s court. They are having a feast at the beginning of the story (normally pentecost), but this one takes place at christmas. At this feast there is a table and like in any medieval court the seating arrangements are important. Arthur and guinevere are at the head of the table and gawain is sitting immediately next to guinevere. We are told both that arthur"s court is young, but also the members of the court are young. The green knight insults them on the basis of their youth.
