'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and 'Pearl'

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl, two of the most complex and celebrated poems in Middle English literature, survive by chance in a single manuscript. Although probably by the same poet: the eponymous 'Gawain-poet', the two poems inhabit very different worlds. Sir Gawain contributes to a vast European-wide tradition of Arthurian romance, conjuring a world of courtly life, chivalric endeavour, seduction and the supernatural. Pearl, on the other hand, works within an explicitly Christian frame of reference: a mourning father experiences a dream-vision of his deceased daughter in paradise and receives religious instruction from her. Despite the different story worlds, there are many things that unite these two poems: their alliterative poetic form, North-Western dialect, and lexis of courtly refinement. We will spend the majority of the semester conducting a close reading of these two poems in their original Middle English, with some reference to translations. We will also explore the poems in their material manuscript context, consider their translation by contemporary poets, and discuss the controversial 2021 film, The Green Knight.