I want to give you some background for reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  The poem is part of the Arthurian literature of the Middle Ages, and so, it assumes that you know a number of things about the story of King Arthur and the Round Table that modern readers don’t always know.  Even if you know about modern versions of the King Arthur story, you’ll be at a bit of a disadvantage, because medieval versions of the story tend to be very different from modern versions.

In early versions of the story, Arthur was associated with the story of Troy (and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins and ends by mentioning the siege at Troy).  The Trojan story is very complicated, but in effect, it’s the tale of how a beautiful woman (Helen) abandoned her husband (Menelaus of Sparta) to run away with another man (Paris of Troy).  Her husband gathered an army of the greatest warriors of Greece (including Odysseus/Ulysses, Ajax, and Achilles) and besieged Troy (on the coast of Asia Minor) to get his wife back.  After ten years of horrible, bloody war, Troy fell (by the trick of the Trojan horse) and was burned to the ground.  Troy, a glorious city of great sophistication and civilization, was destroyed by the barbarian Greeks because of the infidelity of a single woman.  (NOTE:  Remember this Trojan story when we get to Dr. Faustus later in the term, because one of the things that Dr. Faustus will request from the devil is to see Helen of Troy, the “face that launched a thousand ships.”)

According to the legends, Arthur was a distant descendant of Aeneas, a great Trojan hero who escaped from Troy as the Greeks destroyed it.  But medieval writers also associated Arthur with the Trojan story because they saw parallels between what happened at Troy and what happened at Camelot (Arthur’s capital, a glorious city of great sophistication and civilization -- much like Troy).  At Camelot, Arthur gathered all the best knights of the land with the express purpose of doing good in the world.  The knights of the Round Table were to fight for right, defend helpless women and children, and seek after holiness (including the Holy Grail).  And Camelot succeeded for a while.  But then, it fell apart, and it fell apart because of Arthur’s wife, Guenevere.  According to medieval versions of the story, Guenevere started having affairs with the knights of the Round Table behind her husband’s back (according to Malory and pretty much every version since she only had one affair with Lancelot).  When some of the knights who wanted to humiliate and depose Arthur made the affairs public, a civil war developed, and Camelot was destroyed -- much like Troy.  One woman’s infidelity brought down all of civilization and forced England to experience years of brutal barbarity.

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the emphasis is on Gawain (the greatest knight of the Round Table before the character of Lancelot was introduced much later in the story's history) -- not on Guenevere.  But the poem is very much caught up in the issue of what really caused the fall of Camelot -- of whether the blame lies with Guenevere.

Keep in mind, however, that this poem is meant to be funny.  It’s a poem with a serious message told with a sense of humor.  If things seem a bit silly or funny or ridiculous, they are meant to seem that way.  Don’t take the poem too seriously.  But note too that the humor isn’t just gratuitous; it’s part of the serious message of the poem.

E-mail opportunity (2 extra-credit points): E-mail the discussion list created for this class with your response to one or more of the following questions (or comment significantly on what someone else has already said in the discussion):

1. How are men and women portrayed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
2. What is wrong with Camelot in the poem?  What flaw exists in the people of Arthur’s court?  Who or what is going to be responsible for Camelot’s fall?
3. Why does the Green Knight come to challenge the court?  Is he a good guy or a bad guy?  Is he coming to help or to destroy?