1st Edition

An Introduction to The Gawain-Poet

By Ad Putter Copyright 1996
268 Pages
by Routledge

268 Pages
by Routledge

268 Pages
by Routledge

The late 14th century produced a crop of brilliant writers: Chaucer, Langland and Gower. Their achievement was rivalled only by a series of four works generally agreed to have been written by a single northern author, known as the Gawain-Poet. This book introduces the reader to the Gawain-poet's four surviving works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Patience, Pearl and Cleanness . The four... Read more
Preface  Note on References and Abbreviations  Acknowledgements  1. The Gawain-Poet in Context  Introduction; The Poet's Reading;  The Poet's way of Reading;  The Poet in the Text: A humble cleric;  The Poet in the Text: A Court-Poet;  Dialect and Metre: The Gawain-Poet's Remoteness;  A Historical Context for Alliterative Poetry  2. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  Introduction; Romance and Realism;  Plot-telling and the Manipulation of Memory;  Conclusion 3. Patience  Introduction;  Suffrance in the Prologue;  The Gawain-Poet as a reader of the Bible;  Dramatic Irony in the Story of Jonah;  God and Man;  From Revelation to Trust;  4. Pearl  Introduction;  Making Heaven Strange: The Description of Heaven;  Reason and revelation: The Debate about Heaven;  The Unkindness of Heaven;  Patience and Protest in the Epilogue  5. Cleanness  Introduction;  Uncleanness and the Confusion of Kinds;  Imitating God;  The Beauty of Destruction;  Cleaness and Knowing One's Place;  Embodying Culture  Bibliography

Biography

Ad Putter is Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Bristol, UK.

"This is an excellent book, which will serve as a sound and lively introduction for students, but also makes an impressive and substantial contribution to scholarly study of the Gawain-poet." English Studies "Ad Putter's Introduction is aimed at undergraduates and provides clearly written and largely independent critical introductions to the four poems." - TLS