Sir Gawain and the Green Knight/ Ivanhoe

Introduction

Chivalry, and the associated genre of Romance, have proved enduring themes in western literature, as is evidenced by the proliferation of Arthurian and chivalric subjects in literature, television, and film today. The works studied in this unit, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Ivanhoe, encourage students to ask why this is so, and to explore their understanding of these values in their own lives and culture.
For most students, their understanding of medieval literature is inevitably dominated by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provides students with a new view of this period. It reminds them that literature was, by and large, an anonymous process, that what mattered was not the personality of the writer or even the originality of his or her story, but the telling of it. While The Canterbury Tales provides readers with a vivid portrait of English urban life fast evolving into the High Middle Ages, Sir Gawain reminds us of the traditions and folklore that underpinned it and which, to some extent, still provide insight into British culture and values today. It is also part of the Middle English and Norse literature that influenced the great fantasy writers of the twentieth century such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
It has been claimed that from 1815-1830, Sir Walter Scott was the most widely read novelist in the world.1 However, his novels are somewhat neglected by critics today, both because of the stigma of popularity and because much of his work is admittedly flawed. His legacy, though, is one well worth exploring: he may rightly be named the father of the modern historical novel, and he made social history and popular culture subjects acceptable for both literature and scholarly research.2 Ivanhoe is a romance in the medieval tradition, but is also an illustration of how nineteenth century society absorbed and adapted the literary, cultural, and social legacy of the Middle Ages.
In studying these works together, students will learn something of the evolution of British literature, in particular the influence of the Medieval Romance on the modern novel. They will also, though the authors’ own questioning of contemporary attitudes, be prompted to consider the nature of integrity and justice. In the end, though, both Sir Gawain and Ivanhoe are simply exciting stories that will capture the imagination of students and remind them that good literature can give pleasure as well as teach.

1John Lauber, Sir Walter Scott (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989), 100.
2Lauber, Sir Walter Scott, 124-7.

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