Arthurian Essay

The Many Versions of The Legend of King Arthur There are countless versions of the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Most English versions are based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, but where did these tales originate, and what different interpretations are there today? This essay seeks to examine the roots and different renditions of the various legends circulating today. The first section deals with the origins of the legend. The second section

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight Summary The story begins in King Arthur's court, where he and the Knights of the Round Table are celebrating New Year's. While they are enjoying their feast, a gigantic Green Knight rides in on a green horse with an immense axe in his hand to offer them a challenge. His offer is: "I shall bide the fist blow, as bare as I sit…….., but in twelve month and one day he shall have of me the same." (Norton Anthology,208) After a moment of consideration, Sir Gawain

Gawain and the Green Knight, a great epic written in fourteenth century Europe by the Pearl poet, emphasizes the opposition of Christian love to Courtly love in the 13th century through the dilemma of Sir Gawain, one of the great knights of the Arthurian round table. By examining the women in the poem, Gawain's dilemma becomes a metaphor for the contrast of these two distinct types of love. The poem looks upon the Virgin Mary as the representative of spiritual love, obedience, chastity, and life

Freedom and Independence in The Aeneid, Canterbury Tales and Don Quixote In the modern world, the concept of independence has become convoluted, and “freedom” has turned into a buzzword employed for far-reaching, often invasive political purposes. At their core, these ideas require cooperation and consideration of neighboring ideologies. When looking at Virgil’s Aeneid, The Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Cervantes’ Don Quixote—three works from different periods

Chaucer—perhaps uses the women who had power in King Arthur’s court to emphasize the effects of power, the lack of it and how that is faulty is his society. After being judged by King Arthur and was to be punished by a sentence to death, the Knight receives grace from a woman. When the knight was to be sentenced to have a beheading, the queen shows him mercy by reconciling with her husband King Arthur. The queen, upon approval from the King, gives the Knight a quest which was to find out “What thyng

‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ is an Arthurian legend written in Middle English sometime in the mid to late 1300’s. The text of the poem was found in a manuscript called the Cotton Nero nx which contains three other poems, all thought to be by the Gawain poet. The poem has frequently been called a literary masterpiece by critics since its discovery and it is widely believed to have been inspired by similar poems found in other languages of the time. The plot of the story centres on a challenge

4 The achievements of Courtly Love Courtly love succeeded in making love between two persons more honourable than it has been before, when marriage between a man and a women was mainly seen as a tool used for economical, political or religious reasons (Singer, Philosophy of Love 33). 4.1 Courtly Love and Christianity As already stated, Courtly Love enabled the access to complete love and oneness outside of religious environments. Generally, it tried to temper the Christian ideas during the Middle

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a religious allegory full of Christian symbolism with the central message of sin, forgiveness, and redemption. The poem is a great story of virtues, trust and honor. It's an Arthurian romance in which Sir Gawain carries a shield on his chest in his quest for Green Knight. Gawain's shield has two images, a picture of Virgin Mary on the inside and "Painted upon his shield is a five-pointed star (pentangle). He is a perfect knight who realizes that it is important

The Waste Land, published in 1922, is a 434-line poem by T.S. Eliot. It is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest poems of the 20th century, and an important text in Modernist poetry (wiki). Because it makes use of several allusions and quotations in different languages and of different cultures, and also shifts between speakers, location, and time abruptly and unannounced, critics regard the poem as obscure and fragmented, nothing more than a chaotic assemblage of Eliot’s thoughts. Consequently

Inferno by Dante Alighieri is beautifully woven to reflect the realities or unrealities of the time. The various circles of hell are used by the Florentine writer Dante, to tell the tale in a structured and elaborate manner, with the use of nine circles of the Inferno (Havely, 374). Interesting, however, is the manner in which Dante describes the characters, as they are seen to be facing tragedies in their life in hell. The author of this medieval text categorizes the different types of sins that