Abstract

The subject of this paper is the Gawain poet and his monumental poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The concern will not be with the poet's identity or social rank, but will instead be with his motives. In some places this paper will appear to work backwards, assuming that since a certain effect was achieved, it must have been intended, but that is not an uncommon assumption in literary criticism.

Entertainment value will be stressed not because Sir Gawain is exclusively entertainment, but because the primary purpose of the author was to entertain, as a sermon may be entertaining but is, nonetheless, primarily homiletic.

Byway of clarification, the primary text referred to in this paper will be Sir Gawain and the Green Knight edited by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, second edition revised by Norman Davis (1967). The divisions referred to in the paper, however, will be the nine original manuscript divisions, signified by large capital letters (see appendix), not the four usually accepted, arbitrary divisions of Sir Frederic Madden.

LLU Discipline

English

Department

English

School

Graduate School

First Advisor

Grosvenor R. Fattic

Second Advisor

Richard B. Lewis

Third Advisor

Robert P. Dunn

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Level

M.A.

Year Degree Awarded

1982

Date (Title Page)

5-1982

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Gawain and the Grene Knight.

Type

Thesis

Page Count

iv; 118

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

Download

Share

COinS