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 include theories 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. A full bibliography completes the volume.
The late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.
Reviews
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. CHOICEImpressive 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