Sir Gawain : Eleven Romances and Tales

This edition provides the first modern collection of all eleven known Middle English Gawain tales composed or recorded in the fifteenth century or later. These romances highlight Gawain’s status as the most popular hero of Arthurian legend in medieval England, producing a tradition that discards Gawain’s roles of foil, rival, and even villain in Continental European romances to elevate him as the English flower of chivalry. Whether facing the supernatural in the wilderness, danger on the battlefield, or the perils of love, it is Gawain’s peerless courtesy, his “perfect composure in moments of crisis,” that reasserts social bonds and propriety, tames the socially or exotically monstrous, and brings the unruly under royal rule. Demonstrating that Gawain’s prominence in English romance extends far beyond Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, these tales cast this familiar character in a new light and offer valuable insights into English views on the chivalric ideal.