Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (henceforth SGGK) is widely regarded as one of the greatest of the Middle English romances, surviving in a single manus cript. Because of alliterative versification and the localised setting, the poem was once considered as a work produced in the baronial household of the northern magnates who opposed the flourishing of the central capital. However, the Gawain-poet can no longer be associated with a man of a parochial locality and mindset: the poem is now more aptly read as a work which negotiates the matrix of local, national, and international points of view.64 As Ad Putter cogently puts it, the author is apparently “cosmopolitan, but not oblivious to regional identity” (An Introduction 36). This would suggest that Gawain’s individual adventure in the tale cannot be appreciated without its underlying framework, the so-called “Trojan frame.” Initiating his alliterative poem with a reference to the European civilization by the noble Trojans, the poet stakes a claim to an international heritage (Turville-Petre, “Afterwords” 345).
Overall, the opening stanza has generally escaped critical attention; for example, distinguished scholars such as Larry D. Benson and A. C. Spearing presented hardly any views on this stanza, nor did Elizabeth Brewer’s Source and Analogue consider this classical material. In his Ricardian Poetry, J. A. Burrow even once related that the prologue “introduces an adventure which has no significance at all for the history of kings of Britain” (96). The lack of critical attention to the prolo gue has stemmed partly from the assumption that the Trojan topos is a kind of literary convention, or as Derek Pearsall regards it, “something of a signature of alliterative poetry” (Old English and Middle English Poetry 158). Since then, several scholars have attempted to discuss the thematic relevance of the Trojan myth to the ensuing narrative that it enfolds; for
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example, Malcolm Hebron regards the significance of the siege of Troy as a “metaphor of tragedy” (92) in the Middle Ages and suggests that SGGK’s opening reference is indicative of the doom that inevitably befalls the Arthurian court. Considering that Gawain’s humiliated adventure is received, ultimately, with light laughter by Arthur and his court, the poem could imply that “the court understan dably remains unaware of its future demise” (Hodapp 26), or that “the seeds of a catastrophe that equalled the destruction of Troy” (David 408) are already sprouted. While it is tempting to situate the poem within the trajectory of the Arthurian dynasty an d to read the initial destruction of Troy as an implicit parallel to the eventual downfall of Camelot, such focus on this thematic link overshadows the varied implications rich in the prologue.
This chapter discusses the relatively unexplored relationship between the Trojan opening stanza and its implication for Gawain’s experience in the province. In addition, I posit that the heroic enterprises of the Trojan forefathers overlap with, and form the underpinning basis for, an individual quest of a Knight of the Round Table to the Green Chapel, which in turn reveals a unique aspect of the region —a space conventionally marginalised in the Arthurian narrative.
In essence, the opening lines of SGGK primarily tell of the heroic, adventurous Trojans, a powerful attraction for people of the aristocratic and royal community, as the legendary history of the siege of Troy has been both influential and inspirational in the development of Western culture. In general, most European countries have taken pains to trace their origins back to ancient Troy in order to reinforce the legitimacy of their monarchs and burgeoning national identities. In England, for example, Geoffrey’s Historia contributed largely to the invention of Trojan Britain, connecting Arthur, a Briton king, with an ancient lineage of Brutus, Aeneas’ grandson and eponymous founder of Britain. Regarding the use of Trojan history in the Middle Ages, Lee Patterson observes that “while on the Continent the claim to Trojan origin was asserted
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perfunctorily in the course of pursuing other interests, in England it remained a powerful instrument of royal propaganda” (203). The series of introductory passages of SGGK indeed shows a glimpse of Britain’s or igin and stresses the genealogical continuity from the Trojans to Brutus and Arthur, but it unfolds with some twists:
Siþen þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye, Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondez and askez, Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe:
Hit watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde, Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome Welneȝe of al þe wele in þe west iles. (1-7)
The founding journey of Aeneas and his k in’s westward translatio imperii (transfer of rule) are presented here with a special focus.65 There has been much debate as to the identity of “Þe tulk who þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt” (3), because a man convicted of treason would not normally be c onsidered “þe trewest on erthe” (4). While some consider “Þe tulk” to be Antenor, a recent consensus is that it refers to Aeneas, the hero being at once treasonous and honorable.66 Malcolm Andrew insists that the Trojan’s contradiction, which fits well with the motif of “bliss and blunder” (18) in the following lines, needs not be resolved. I concur with his reading that “the Troy frame will prove a rich but ambivalent context for the following story of Gawain” (82).
Blending both his inglorious and honorabl e elements, the poet seems to rather deliberately support the duality of his heroism and ambiguity of his treachery.
This paradoxical nature is produced by the poet’s reference to the heroic deeds performed by Aeneas after the sack of Troy, an aspect which becomes further noticeable
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when compared with the contemporary account of Aeneas. In fact, Aeneas’ betrayal of the city in complicity with Antenor during the time when the Greek forces surround Troy was widely recorded and invoked in medieval England. Aeneas urged Priam, the king of Troy, to negotiate peace with them to get outside the city, plotting to sell out his country to the Greeks for the sake of his own life and property. Thus he was, among others, widely recognised as an evil turncoat in the conte mporary Guido-based Trojan narratives, such as The Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy, The Laud Troy Book, and The Seege or Batayle of Troye.67 Sharon Stevenson points out that, in these Trojan narratives, Aeneas is portrayed consistently as “a foul traitor” who never again has the same power or influence after his flight from Troy. His lack of reputation as a martial, territorial trailblazer—an aspect that belies the effect of what Patterson calls “a powerful instrument of royal propaganda”—might reflect the literary current of the contemporary Trojan narrative as a whole, which James Simpson crisply summarizes as follows:
In the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a powerful tradition of the Troy narrative, then, has no sympathy for ancestral or imperialistic pretensions.
Instead, this tradition represents the failures of militarist societies, and those failures are produced from the very territorial and matrimonial dynamics by which such centuries are driven. (419)
With this in mind, it can be said that SGGK, purportedly written toward the close of the 14th century, makes a rather exceptional presentation of Aeneas and his descendants as founders of the Western countries; Aeneas begets “his highe kynde,” who afterwards
“depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome / Welneȝe of al þe wele in þe west iles.”
Fleeting and slight as the passage may be, the crux of the Trojan prologue is
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characterised by what Simpson refers to as “ ancestral or imperialistic pretensions.”
What is strikingly unique to the poem, then, is the initial highlight that the “treachery”
serves as the very impetus for the territorial conquests and the concomitant birth of Western nations.
One question, however, arises from the series of discussions: Since ancestral treachery gave birth to the kingdom of Britain itself, what happens to Gawain after his treachery? One might also ask if he can follow the path of the Trojan eponymous heroes Romulus, Tirius, Langaberde, and Brutus, arriving at and establi shing new lands. In order to address these questions, I will examine the moment and the way in which the theme of Gawain’s treachery takes place. His exchange with Lady Bertilak is one of the crucial ordeals during his sojourn in the provincial residence, which I argue evokes the curious resonance of the Trojan motif, culminating in the common issue of treachery. I suggest that the consequence of this parallel structure between the westward journey of the Trojan forefathers and that of the knight of Camelot , in terms of their territorial preoccupation, provides a new angle from which to understand Gawain’s experiences in the northwest province.