As a narrative poem Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight imaginatively creates moral suspense -- real suspense
around the strength of bravery, integrity, and virtue. It does so for a community and individuals who
might often seem exemplars of honor:
King Arthur and the knights and ladies of his Round Table. I find this of interest now years after I
first read works like Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur,
White’s The Once and Future King, and
Tennyson’s Idylls of the King,
because of the personal and communal transformation that occurs in Sir Gawain.
When I was a lad, I was most impressed by the ability of
Arthur and Lancelot and Galahad and the like to defeat their enemies and
achieve success. Sure, I was aware of
some shortcomings in the characters. But
it was their larger-than-lifeness that then captured my readerly fancy. Now as an adult, I appreciate most the
depiction of Arthur and Gawain and the like as simultaneously virtuous and
flawed characters who, nevertheless, press on with a sense of duty and fidelity
to themselves and to their communities. At
least this is my reaction after recently reading Merwin’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and after
reflecting on the symbolic transformation of the green belt at its ending.
