Robin Brown

English 20

Michelle Karnes

University of Pennsylvania

King Arthur and his court were described as chivalrous, noble, courageous, and honorable.  They were held to very high ideals and described almost to the height of perfection.  In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we will witness this reputation they hold so dear, be challenged and diluted.  Sir Gawain will act as an ambassador of this personification of excellence that we know as King Arthur and his court, and he will be put to the ultimate test, that of character.

        In Part I of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we are introduced to King Arthur and his court.  King Arthur is described to us as “most courteous of all” (l.26) among British Kings, which is an indication of his greatness and his court is reveled as the most courteous, courageous, and noble knights throughout Britain. The Green Knight describes them mockingly in lines 309-315: “What, is this Arthur’s house,” said that horseman then,/“Whose fame is so fair in far realms and wide?/Where is now your arrogance and your awesome deeds,/Your valor and your victories and your vaunting words?/Now are the revel and renown of the Round Table/Overwhelmed with a word of one man’s speech,/For all cower and quake, and no cut felt!”

Immediately we are alerted to the weakness of the court when the Green Knight proposes his challenge.  Not one knight rises to this challenge until, through shame Arthur stands to accept the opposition.  This, I believe, was done purposely to elucidate the idea that Arthur was the leader of these men, he was the most courageous and noble among them, but their collective and individual courage was not as great as their reputation held it to be.  It was the mockery of their reputation that sparked within Arthur the drive to withstand the challenge, not courage.

Shortly after Arthur counters the Green Knight’s challenge, Sir Gawain intervenes and proclaims that it is not proper for Arthur to be the Knight’s opposition, so he volunteers to take King Arthur’s place.  I see the initial hesitation by the court of Arthur to step up to the challenge, the first indication of what is to come.  It is obvious by the Green Knight mockery of their reputation and his earlier suggestion in lines 279-282 that Bertilak’s visit is not about physical prowess but a different kind of battle. He states:

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“Nay, to fight, in good faith, is far from my thought;/There are about on these benches but beardless children,/Were I here in full arms on a haughty steed,/For measured against mine, their might is puny.” Bertilak is here to challenge the reputation and ideals that King Arthur and his court are held to, and he does a very good job at pushing the right buttons to get them to respond.  Bertilak knows that the idea or image of King Arthur’s court is what is important to them and they will do anything they can to spare it, even as ridiculous ...

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