A Companion to the Gawain-Poet

by Derek Brewer, Jonathan Gibson, A C Spearing, A. S. G. Edwards, Anne Rooney

Overview

Essays intended as a companion to a reading of the works of the Gawain poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience

The essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume.

DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universityies of Exeter and Durham.

Contributors: DEREK BREWER, MALCOLM ANDREW, A.C. SPEARING, JANE GILBERT, MICHAEL J. BENNETT, DAVID AERS, RALPH ELLIOTT, MICHAEL THOMPSON, FELICITY RIDDY, ANNE ROONEY, MICHAEL LACY, A.S.G. EDWARDS, H.N. DUGGAN, ELISABETH BREWER, RICHARD NEWHAUSER, HELEN COOPER, NICHOLAS WATSON, PRISCILLA MARTIN, NICK DAVIS, DEREK PEARSALL, GILLIAN ROGERS, BARRY WINDEATT, DAVID J. WILLIAMS

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780859914338
Publisher:	BOYDELL & BREWER INC
Publication date:	01/11/1997
Series:	ISSN , #38
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

A. S. G. Edwards has taught at various universities in North America and England and currently holds honorary professorships at the University of Kent, UniversityCollege, London, and King's College, London.

The late Derek Pearsall was Emeritus Gurney Professor of Middle English Literature at Harvard University; he wrote extensively on Chaucer, Gower, Langland and Lydgate, including biographies of Chaucer and Lydgate, an edition of the C-text of Langland's Piers Plowman.

Jane Gilbert is Senior Lecturer in French at UniversityCollege London, UK.

NICHOLAS WATSON teaches English at Harvard University. His research focuses on medieval English and North European literature, intellectual history, visionary writing and the role of the written vernacular.

Table of Contents

- A S G Edwards
‘Meter, Stanza, Vocabulary, Dialect'. - Hoyt N Duggan
‘Text and Society: The Historical Background'. -
‘Text and Society. Christianity for Courtly Subjects: Reflections on the Gawain-Poet'. -
‘Everyday Life: Landscape and Geography'. - Ralph W V Elliott
‘Everyday Life: Feasts'. - Derek S Brewer
‘Everyday Life. Jewels: Luxury, Piety and Preciousness in Pearl'. - Linda Brosnan
‘Everyday Life: The Hunts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. - Anne Rooney
‘Everyday Life: Castles'. - M W Thompson
‘Everyday Life: Armour in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. -
‘Literary Sources: Romances and Other Secular Sources (Sir Gawain)'. - Elisabeth Brewer
‘Literary Sources: Scriptural and Devotional Sources of the Gawain-Poet (Other poems)'. - Richard G. Newhauser
‘Courtesy and Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Order of Shame and the Invention of Embarrassment'. -
‘Gender and Sexual Transgression in the Gawain-Poet'. - Jane Gilbert ***
‘The Gawain-Poet as a Vernacular Theologian'. - Nicholas Watson
‘The Supernatural'. - Helen Cooper
‘Narrative Structures'. - Nick Davis
‘Allegory and Symbolism'. - Priscilla Martin
‘Poetic Identity in the Gawain-Poet'. - A C Spearing ***
‘Sir Gawain: Some Later Versions. The Grene Knight'. -
‘Sir Gawain: Some Later Versions. Sir Gawain at the fin de siècle: Novel and Opera'. - Barry A Windeatt
‘Sir Gawain: Some Later Versions. Sir Gawain in Films'. - David Williams - Malcolm Andrew - Michael Lacy
The Supernatural - Helen Cooper

Editorial Reviews

Impressive collection of essays... will surely become a key starting point for any new work on the poet and poems.

SPECULUM

A boon companion, an essential guide, for those setting out to explore the world of this fascinating poet.

ARTHURIANA

This superb collection of introductory essays by leading scholars and critics provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet.

CHOICE

All students and scholars of the Middle English Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain will want to consult this valuable new compendium.

ANGLIA

This superb collection of introductory essays by leading scholars and critics provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet. CHOICE
Impressive collection of essays... will surely become a key starting point for any new work on the poet and poems. SPECULUM
A boon companion, an essential guide, for those setting out to explore the world of this fascinating poet. ARTHURIANA
All students and scholars of the Middle English Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain will want to consult this valuable new compendium. ANGLIA

From the Publisher