Is it OK if I write about how I dislike Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?  

I remember reading the poem in college and liking it. There was always something intriguing about medieval England and the stories of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. I read the translation by J. R. R. Tolkien years later, but it was years ago so I don’t remember much of it. I thought it was enjoyable since I like old fashioned tales of chivalry. 🙂

@col-klink I'd be interested in hearing why you're not a fan. It sounds like you had a strong reaction to the story.

I can't say I've ever read the original text, but I absolutely loved David Lowery's film adaptation this year. Definitely worthy of consideration in the End of Year awards discussion.

It's such an intriguing film with a very unconventional narrative structure. It did take me a bit of additional research to fully unlock all of its thematic subtleties, but I think that's partly why it was such a rewarding watch.

I understand that they have expanded and altered much of the original story, but as it was explained to me, the changes made seemed to make for a more interesting interpretation. In essence, the thematic key to the movie is the 5 Virtues of Chivalry, with the film is broken down into several short individually titled sections whereby Gaiwin is confronted with a moral test of his virtue. 

It's definitely not a very "accessible" movie, and it's easy to see why mainstream audiences would have struggled to decipher it's many layers of coded themes, but I enjoyed it a lot, and really admire it's bravery in choosing to be so unconventional.

I have read Sir Gawain in my high school senior year as part of our English class. (For those of you may not know, I was actually home schooled, though I had a class that was video taped, so it was like I was part of a class). I went through English Literature in my senior year, and Sir Gawain was one of things we've read.

@mel  Well, full disclosure, I only read it in high school at the end of a stretch of studying medieval poetry, which I'd never liked and by then, disliked. So maybe I was just in a highly unreceptive state.

The basic story isn't terrible or anything. But it's pretty simple and didn't need to be nearly as long as it was. The characters didn't strike me as interesting at all and neither did the description that served as padding. (Maybe I just had a bad translation.) 

How were you first introduced to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? 

I probably saw it in a list of Tolkien's works. I saw the movie trailer but lost interest in it when I saw that it was rated R. My friends suggested that we should read it. Unless it is part of Le Morte D'Arthur in which case that is where I was introduced to it. I didn't see it when I glanced through.

Which translation are you reading? (Have you read multiple translations? Do you have a preference and why?)

I will be listening to Tolkien's translation. I hope to locate a hardcopy of it but haven't had a chance to look. I would love comparing different translations but since I haven't read any translations yet, I think I will stick to one.

My guess is that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight would have been one of C.S. Lewis’ favorite poems. It is something like Spenser’s Fairie Queene in that it is about King Arthur’s knights. Lewis loved those kind of stories, and unlike Eustace, he read the right books.  He probably taught the students how to read the poem in his classes when he was a professor. Sir Gawain is one of the first works that students read in an English Literature class in college.

@icarus Intriguing note about the virtues!  I'll have to look into that more; thanks for that.  Having read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a few times, I can say the movie is very faithful thematically to the story, but the events are quite different.  Not much has been spoiled for you if you still want to read the poem!

@narnian78 Lewis mentions Sir Gawain and the Green Knight very briefly in his essay "On Stories" (1947).  He gives examples of how an author's choices can affect the atmosphere and tenor of a story:

Jack the Giant-Killer is not, in essence, simply the story of a clever hero surmounting danger. It is in essence the story of such a hero surmounting danger from giants. It is quite easy to contrive a story in which, though the enemies are of normal size, the odds against Jack are equally great. But it will be quite a different story. The whole quality of the imaginative response is determined by the fact that the enemies are giants. That heaviness, that monstrosity, that uncouthness, hangs over the whole thing. [...] I have seen landscapes (notably in the Mourne Mountains) which, under a particular light, made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge. Nature has that in her which compels us to invent giants: and only giants will do. (Notice that Gawain was in the north-west corner of England when 'etins aneleden him', giants came blowing after him on the high fells. Can it be an accident that Wordsworth was in the same places when he heard 'low breathings coming after him'?) The dangerousness of the giants is, though important, secondary. In some folk-tales we meet giants who are not dangerous. But they still affect us in much the same way. A good giant is legitimate: but he would be twenty tons of living, earth-shaking oxymoron. The intolerable pressure, the sense of something older, wilder, and more earthy than humanity, would still cleave to him.

I love this description of giants; it helped me better understand the figure of the giant in fairy tales, and it added a little extra imagery to my second-favorite passage in Gawain and the Green Knight:

But if those fights were fierce, winter was worse,

when chilling water spilled out of the clouds

freezing as it fell, pelting the pale ground.

Almost killed by sleet, he sleeps in all his armour

more nights than enough among the rough rocks,

where plummeting cascades from the summits ran cold

or hung over his head in hard ice-blades. (726-32, translated by Keith Harrison)

Posted by: @mel

Is it a Christmas tale, or does it just begin and end at Christmas?

I love this question.  Can we discuss this more?  I am finding while rereading the poem for this forum that it's the perfect time of year to be reading it.   I think it's more of a New Year's tale, in that there's so much thematically about death, reincarnation, and new life.

Posted by: @inkling

 I think it's more of a New Year's tale, in that there's so much thematically about death, reincarnation, and new life.

I believe the inciting action takes place on New Year's, yes? But it's still functionally a Christmas party according to the traditions of the time. Wouldn't that argue that, for the poet, Christmas and New Year's are the same thing, or that the one informs the understanding of the other?

Posted by: @inkling

@icarus Intriguing note about the virtues!  I'll have to look into that more; thanks for that.  Having read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a few times, I can say the movie is very faithful thematically to the story, but the events are quite different.  Not much has been spoiled for you if you still want to read the poem!

From what i've read, it is my understanding that the 5 Knightly Virtues of Chivalry are also present as a sub-text in the poem, though i'm guessing that since no-one has mentioned them so far, they perhaps aren't all that obvious as plot element? (although I think the movie adaptation is just as difficult to decipher and interpret in that regard).

For anyone who was interested then, the 5 Virtues of Chivalry are Friendship, Generosity, Chastity, Courtesy, and Piety, and are traditionally represented by the symbol of the Pentangle (a 5 pointed star) which is featured prominently in the visual imagery of the movie. Guinevere also mentions them in her farewell message to Sir Gawain,

These 5 virtues (along with the broader virtues of Courage and Honour) are explored thematically in the movie as follows: