Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
My first introduction to the King Arthur legends was a slim volume based on Malory. The editors had carefully removed everything inappropriate for children (i.e. all the interesting bits) and for years I believed the King Arthur legends were pompous and boring and that people who read them did so out of a kind of snobbery.
In college, I read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for the first time, and the Arthurian legends took on a whole new life. Like many of the early tales, the story has obvious pagan roots, but a Christian moral has been laid over the original framework. The writing is strongly evocative and ranges from scenes of court life and courtly love to the cold and blasted wilderness.
During the course of the poem, Sir Gawain (the original hero of Arthur's court) is tempted almost beyond his strength (and certainly beyond the strength of any soul less heroic). The nature of evil in the poem is ambiguous, though.
I didn't spot the devil in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; rather a supernatural being who was intent upon causing mischief propelled the story forward. (I have heard of a conception of the devil as an ally of God. God controls the devil and uses him as an instrument to test humanity. Therefore, even where there is apparent contradiction the two are actually working in harmony. Villains in this poem seem to be much like that; their purpose is to test the heroic soul rather than to be truly evil.)
The popular view of the Arthurian legends is knights on white horses beating each other up, saving damsels in distress, and above all fretting about their honor. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, though, is much more sophisticated than this. Sir Gawain's perplexities about maintaining his honor are convincing, and the story is gripping. For the new or old reader of Arthurian legends, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is certainly worthwhile.
For those who are curious, this poem is a translation. While the poet was contemporary with Chaucer (whose works can still be read in the original with a large glossary and a flexible attitude about sentence structure), the English in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is foreign to the modern reader. The version I have was translated by Brian Stone in 1959 (and as with so many of my more interesting books, this copy was acquired in a Berkeley secondhand bookstore).
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