Integrating chivalric romance narrative with complicated instances of pre-modern exchange, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight reveals the binding power of pledging one?s trawþe and the transformative power of exchanged objects in a gift economy. By reading the Exchange of Blows and the Exchange of Winnings according to the social demands of a gift economy and of a pledged trawþe, this thesis delineates the nature of Gawain?s failure to keep his word to his host. I offer my analysis of gift theory to suggest how the poem reveals the tensions between chivalric pledges of loyalty and nascent capitalist exchanges. R. A. Shoaf demonstrates the presence in the text of an emerging commercial economy, claiming the poem ?involves the transformation of Gawain?into a consumer and?into a merchant? (3-4). While Gawain behaves as a nascent capitalist, as evident by his passive reception of the exchanged items and his lack of generosity, the other residents of Hautdesert do not. The workings of gift exchange were first postulated by social anthropologists: Marcel Mauss focused on reciprocity, while Branislaw Malinowski, and later, Annette Weiner, argued that gift exchanges operate in a circular system, with repayment not necessarily directed toward the original donor. The exchanges between Bertilak and Gawain show elements of the requisite reciprocity of Mauss? formulation, yet the presence of Morgan le Fey and Lady Bertilak complicates the exchanges and suggests an economy of circularity. While Geraldine Heng and Sheila Fischer have argued that the women of the text exhibit agency?Morgan initiates the Exchange of Blows and Lady Bertilak gives kisses and the girdle?this project argues that it is the performative presence of the trawþe between Gawain and Bertilak that creates a male bond, ultimately denying the women authority. The trawþe circumscribes Morgan?s control and allows for the exchange of Lady Bertilak as an object. Richard Firth Green addresses the late medieval tensions in the semantic definitions of ?truth,? arguing that ?in an oral society the precise words of the oath?bind the speaker and listener by virtue of an inherent performative power? (60). While Gawain functions as a self-interested capitalist, keeping the girdle for its value to save his life, the chivalric trawþe ensures that failure to adhere to the terms of the agreement results not only in contractual liability but knightly disgrace. Gawain?s failure to reciprocate the gift leads to his dishonor, for the medieval gift that is not reciprocated ?would make the recipient dependent on the donor,? endangering ?his honour, freedom and even his life? (Gurevich 180). In medieval gift systems the values of exchanged objects are determined not only by their function within a competitive game about prestige and power, but also by their identification with the donors themselves. Annette Weiner?s articulation of the inalienability of certain objects?the possibility that some objects are ?kept? despite apparent exchange?is useful in explaining the significance of the girdle in Gawain?s failure. Weiner explains that what ?makes a possession inalienable is its exclusive and cumulative identity with a particular series of owners through time? (Weiner 33). The girdle presents just such an inalienable possession; Bertilak ?keeps? the girdle despite Gawain?s physical possession of it. Gawain remains indebted to his adversary, and although he is released from his trawþe, he will continue to wear the girdle as a sign of his failure and the bond with the Green Knight. Ultimately, the court of Camelot assumes the sign of the green girdle, a subtle warning by the Gawain-poet of the inevitable spread of un-trawþe in prioritizing the values of self-interested capitalist exchange.

This essay discusses the aspects of Carnival in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the opposition between ordinary official life and the Carnival. Peter Burke’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on the Carnival are used throughout the analyse of the poem mainly with focus on four different aspects; food, sex, violence and games. The essay also discusses the questioning of rank, which was central to the spirit of the Carnival where all were considered equal.  Gawain is the protagonist who throughout the poem manages to resist the spirit of the Carnival despite being challenged by three different antagonists who in their on ways symbolise the Carnival; the Green knight with aggressive and mocking speech, the Lady of the Castle who acts as the seducer and Lord Bertilak who in his three hunts shows that he embraces the spirit of the Carnival.

This diploma thesis aims to classify the uses of as in the text of the Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from a formal and functional perspective. As has acquired a great number of functions through the process of grammaticalization. The theoretical part of the thesis firstly deals with the historical development of as from the Old English swā and ealswā. It then describes the uses of as in Middle English. In this period, as was found to function as an adverb, conjunction, preposition and a relative pronoun. Each of these uses can be further divided into a number of subtypes. The thesis subsequently summarizes the functions as can have in Present-Day English. The final sections of the theoretical overview briefly present the processes of grammaticalization and constructionalization, as these two processes have been instrumental in the development of as. The practical section is concerned with the analysis of all the instances of as in the chosen text. It classifies them and defines each type of use in more detail. The analysis also considers competing means of expressing the same function and comments on possible ambiguities. Furthermore, this section deals with the uses of as in the text from the perspective of their grammaticalization and also points out uses which are only...

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Living in an era where success is embraced as a life style, raises concerns that the alternatives to become, to grow and mature have been limited to a single variety – one where only triumph matters. This is a view that is spread through contemporary popular culture, whether it be in social media, video games, tv-series, films or books. One of its origins can be found in Christopher Vogler’s dramaturgical template The Hero’s Journey. A common motif used in The Hero’s Journey is the Quest-motif; a knight on an adventure seeking the holy Grail; or Indiana Jones on search for the Arch. One of the foremost examples of the Quest-motif in English literature is the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but the hero in this tale does not come of age through success, but rather through shame and failure. By comparing the original 1400-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with the 2021 film adaption The Green Knight, and relating them to the Hero’s Journey, the aim of this essay is to show that the ways to become are altered in the adaptation and to argue that the film is moulded to fit with the Hero’s Journey. This essay proposes that contemporary story telling lacks alternative ways to become, since modern narrative structures are focused on Coming of Age through success in accordance with the Hero’s Journey. If storytellers can create a greater awareness of the discourse of success and how they themselves are subjects of malleability of this discourse, maybe the contemporary audiences will experience narratives that provide a variety of ways to become, creating a world shaped by diversity and inclusion.

Worn items are a crucial part of non-verbal social interaction that simultaneously exhibits communal, cultural, and political structures and individual preferences. This thesis examines the role of fictional costume and colour in constructing identities within two fourteenth-century Arthurian verse narratives: Froissart’s Middle French Meliador and the anonymous Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. To emphasise the imaginative value of material cultures and discuss the potential reception of fictional objects, the argument draws on illuminations from nine manuscripts of prose Arthurian stories. Particularly stressing the role of colour in garments, the first chapter examines the issues of analysing literary costume, reviews the provenances of the texts and illuminations, and establishes the relevant historical background concerning fashion, symbolism, and materials of construction (such as fabric, dyes, and decorations). This is followed by two chapters on men’s items. First, the use of courtly clothes and colour-related epithets in manipulating perception and deceiving internal and external audiences is explored. Second, the symbolic value of arms and armour in tournament society is evaluated alongside the tensions between war and armed games that such tools reveal. Chapter four expands on the preceding chapters by discussing the application of heraldry as a malleable identifier. Chapter five considers how ladies’ garments, bodies, and character are coalesced and separated through adoption or rejection of literary techniques, thereby creating conflict between noblewomen as social commodities and as persons with narrative agency. The final chapter analyses the employment of wearable items as gifts and commodities and how such objects can alter interpersonal relationships. Colour and costume are a means by which narratives can explore, accept, or reject literary topoi. Their myriad functions allow the active manipulation of identity, relationships, and internal and external audiences. By focusing on the pluralities and ambiguities of meaning connected to colour and costume, this thesis explores how these materials mediate between conflicting connotations to create new meanings within the narratives.

The medieval English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight evidences much of its Celtic heritage in the plot and subplot, as well as in the characters themselves. The Ulster Cycle, an ancient Irish story group, and the Mabinogion, a medieval collection of traditional Welsh tales, both contain parallels to the English romance. In addition to these numerous analogues, other Celtic features appear in the poem. Knowingly or not, the Gawain-poet used the conventions of the Irish and Welsh traditions in the Other World journey, the battle-belt/lace, the pentangle/ sun symbol, and the color green. A study of these elements as Celtic features of the poem ensures a proper reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Gardens played a significant role in the lives of European peoples living in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By producing texts in which gardens and other cultivated landscapes are used as symbol and setting, medieval writers provide us with the opportunity to gain insight into the sociocultural conventions associated with these spaces in the late medieval period. By building our understanding of medieval horticulture through an examination of historical texts, we position ourselves to achieve a greater understanding into the formation of contemporary cultivated literary landscapes and their attendant conventional codes. This study provides a map of current medieval garden interpretation, assessing the shape and validity of recent literary criticism of this field. With a focus on the hortus conclusus (the walled pleasure garden) and arboricultural spaces (including hunting and pleasure parks), this study provides an historicist reinterpretation of horticultural landscapes in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Sir Orfeo, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, furthering our understanding of the authors’ use of such conventionally-coded spaces in these canonical romances.

Gardens played a significant role in the lives of European peoples living in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By producing texts in which gardens and other cultivated landscapes are used as symbol and setting, medieval writers provide us with the opportunity to gain insight into the sociocultural conventions associated with these spaces in the late medieval period. By building our understanding of medieval horticulture through an examination of historical texts, we position ourselves to achieve a greater understanding into the formation of contemporary cultivated literary landscapes and their attendant conventional codes. This study provides a map of current medieval garden interpretation, assessing the shape and validity of recent literary criticism of this field. With a focus on the hortus conclusus (the walled pleasure garden) and arboricultural spaces (including hunting and pleasure parks), this study provides an historicist reinterpretation of horticultural landscapes in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Sir Orfeo, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, furthering our understanding of the authors’ use of such conventionally-coded spaces in these canonical romances.