An examination of the influence of medieval numerology and number theory upon the works of the Gawain poet, this essay seeks to connect the importance of numbers to the construction of the four poems. By examining such number theories as the Divine Proportion and marriage numbers, as well as Pythagorean number concepts of masculine and feminine numbers, a clear connection between the literature and the number can be found. The poet not only seeks to use numbers to impart important Christian doctrine to his readers in a subconscious way, he also demonstrates an extreme pre-planning of every line and layout of each poem upon the page. Continuing in current critical traditions of examining this manuscript as whole, "Pearl, " "Patience, " "Cleanness, " and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" are shown to join together in an interweaving of connectivity through number pattern and the repetition of important numerological concepts.

Both Chaucer and the Gawain-poet use the Matters of Troy and Thebes as material for a critique of courtly life, applying these literary matters to the events and actions in and around Ricardian England. They use these classical matters to express concerns about the effectiveness of the court of Richard II. Chaucer uses his earlier works as a testing ground to develop his views about the value of duty over courtly pursuits, ideas discussed more completely in Troilus and Criseyde. The Gawain-poet uses the Matter of Troy coupled with the court of King Arthur to engage in a critique of courtly concerns. The critiques presented by both poets show a tendency toward duty over courtly concerns.

If queer is an applicable label for that which aims to subvert or counteract normativity, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's tale, and her Prologue are each, in their own ways, queer texts. I examine the ways in which the feminine presences of Morgan le Fay and the Loathly Lady influence and challenge the heteronormative, homosocial space of Arthur and his knights. The two knights in each respective tale journey away from their heteronormative spaces, in which a complex system of homosociality and chivalric patriarchy dominate, to a queer space where each must go against his societal norms and rely on feminine agency and talismans in order for their quests to succeed - and to ensure their survival. It is this very convergence of heteronormative and queer spaces that enables Morgan's defiance of heteronormativity and dominance over those who enter her feminine, non-normative domain. / by Jessica Pitts. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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.

This thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on literary, art historical and textual sources to examine how the act of looking, images, and artistic and textual creation are both dramatized and problematized in the works of the Gawain-poet: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (with some discussion of St Erkenwald, a work often attributed to the same author). Analyzing in detail the texts and illustrations in the Gawain-manuscript (British Library, Cotton MS Nero A.x), the thesis argues that the poet weaves together classical and biblical narratives, along with exegetical and iconographic traditions, in shaping his distinctive reflections on the use and making of images, body and performance, in response to late fourteenth-century religious controversies. The thesis starts by tracing a network of ideas about gaze, sin, body and text through late-medieval biblical and mythographical texts and images. Working text-by-text through the poet’s oeuvre, it then discusses the use of Ovidian materials and the motif of metamorphosis in his complex meditation on ethical and specifically gendered practices of reading, writing and looking. It concludes by assessing the poet’s idea of poetic creation and his own role as a creative artist. In doing so, it suggests that the poet’s self-conscious artistry works together with a consistent emphasis on humility in human’s relations with the divine. The thesis contributes to a growing scholarly interest in the Gawain-illustrations, and a developing focus on visuality in studies of late-medieval devotional and literary works. By linking the analysis of classical/biblical intertexts, visual traditions and the manuscript’s own illustrated texts, it suggests a fresh area of study for the Gawain-poet and his milieux.

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.

When comparing Ywain and Gawain with its source, Chretien de Troyes' Yvain. many critics concentrate on the dramatic omissions and reductions made by the anonymous English adapter. However, the more subtle differences between the two Arthurian romances also deserve attention. Since the goal of medieval adapters of secular texts was to rethink and reinvent their sources, these changes could reveal further aspects of the originality of Ywain and Gawain. which is generally considered a sophisticated work in its own right. With this study, I hope to demonstrate that some of the differences in the Middle English adaptation may signify an effort on the part of the adapter to present his own vision of society and hierarchy. While it is not possible to situate all the characters on a social scale, the probable hierarchical relation between many of them can be established based on their lineage, tide or social position. The present analysis examines modifications in the interaction between some of these characters—due to the limits of this study, I treat only the cases where at least one female character is concerned—and the role of hierarchical submission. I explore examples from two perspectives: that of the characters of lower rank, whose subordination to social superiors is a basic element of social order, and that of the characters of higher rank, whose standing implies both their own authority and the submission of their inferiors. I found that the English poet diminished or omitted many examples that do not respect hierarchy in Yvain. creating the impression of a more hierarchical society in the adaptation. That overall impression is not changed by the fact that the adapter also introduced or amplified other exceptions to the hierarchy, for they are not of an extreme nature and occur only in a limited context. In fact, these additions seem to follow a logical pattern as well, presenting the image of a society in which rank and power are linked. Consequently, they too may be interpreted as part of a coherently modified version of society and hierarchy created by the author of Ywain and Gawain.

When comparing Ywain and Gawain with its source, Chretien de Troyes' Yvain. many critics concentrate on the dramatic omissions and reductions made by the anonymous English adapter. However, the more subtle differences between the two Arthurian romances also deserve attention. Since the goal of medieval adapters of secular texts was to rethink and reinvent their sources, these changes could reveal further aspects of the originality of Ywain and Gawain. which is generally considered a sophisticated work in its own right. With this study, I hope to demonstrate that some of the differences in the Middle English adaptation may signify an effort on the part of the adapter to present his own vision of society and hierarchy. While it is not possible to situate all the characters on a social scale, the probable hierarchical relation between many of them can be established based on their lineage, tide or social position. The present analysis examines modifications in the interaction between some of these characters—due to the limits of this study, I treat only the cases where at least one female character is concerned—and the role of hierarchical submission. I explore examples from two perspectives: that of the characters of lower rank, whose subordination to social superiors is a basic element of social order, and that of the characters of higher rank, whose standing implies both their own authority and the submission of their inferiors. I found that the English poet diminished or omitted many examples that do not respect hierarchy in Yvain. creating the impression of a more hierarchical society in the adaptation. That overall impression is not changed by the fact that the adapter also introduced or amplified other exceptions to the hierarchy, for they are not of an extreme nature and occur only in a limited context. In fact, these additions seem to follow a logical pattern as well, presenting the image of a society in which rank and power are linked. Consequently, they too may be interpreted as part of a coherently modified version of society and hierarchy created by the author of Ywain and Gawain. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate