It is significant when an intrusive narrative voice is silent during such an odd moment.  It creates an awkward gap in the story implying that it would be inappropriate for the narrator to comment.  This moment marks the point where the reader is supposed to realize the bizarre-ness of Pandarus and Troilus’ relationship.

Criseyde being out of the picture but not completely out of the realm of possibility for Troilus is the perfect situation for Pandarus to make his move.  He has been going back and forth between Troilus and Criseyde the whole story, vicariously experiencing their romance.  He has had sex with Criseyde, which the narrator deems appropriate enough to mention.  He says,

With that she gan hire face for to wrye

with the shete, and wax for shame al reed;

And Parndarus gan under for to prie,

And seyde, “Nece, if that I shal be ded,

Have here a swerd and smyteth of myn hed!”

With that his arm al sodeynly he thriste

Under hire nekke, and at the laste hire kyste (1569-1574).

There is a lot of sexual imagery in this passage.  Pandarus has a, “swerd,” with a, “hed” and he performs sexual actions, “thriste,” and, “kyste.”  Somehow this is appropriate enough to put into the text, but the reason for Pandarus being by Troilus’ side at night is not.  This suggests a different reason than mere friendship. 

            When Pandarus sits on Troilus’ bedside after all the other guests have left in the third book, it is explained by reasons that can be conceived of as friendly.  Step one was complete and now Pandarus had to give Troilus advice for step two.  The narrator says,

            Whan every wight was voided but they two,

            And alle the dores weren faste yshette,

            To telle in short, withouten wordes mo,

            This Pandarus, withouten any lette,

Up roos, and on his beddes side hym sette,

And gan to speken in a sobre wyse

To Troilus, as I shal yow devyse: (232-238)…

That seems pretty logical, they had to talk secretly because they were scheming together.

            In the passage where Troilus has the dream there is no explanation at all for why Pandarus is there.  The narrator says,

            And by this bor, faste in his armes folde,

            Lay, kyssyng ay, his lady bright, Criseyde.

            For sorwe of which, whan he it gan byholde,

            And for despit, out of his slep he breyde,

            And loude he cride on Pandarus, and sayde:

            “O Pandarus, now know I crop and roote.

            I n’am but ded; ther nys soon other bote.

            …Thus yn my drem Criseyde have I byholde”—

            And al this thing to Pandarus he tolde.

            …”What shal I don, my Pandarus, allas?…”

            Pandare answered and seyde… (1240-1275).

For the first couple of stanzas it almost seems as if Troilus is somehow talking to himself, or an absent Pandarus, but then without any warning at all Pandarus is right there and answers.  Something is happening here that the narrator cannot talk about.  There is a hint, though; Troilus calls Pandarus, “my Pandarus.”  Considering the nature of Pandarus’ relationship to Troilus and Criseyde, it seems likely that he has just had his way with Troilus as he did with Criseyde.  However, the medieval mind set probably would not allow this to appear graphically in a book since it was considered a bad habit.   

            This is the perfect time for Pandarus to make his move on Troilus.  Troilus is still caught up in his relationship with Criseyde even though she is absent and it seems likely that she will never return.  He has no one to turn to but Pandarus, who, having experienced Troilus’ point of view in the relationship by having sex with Criseyde has yet to experience Criseyde’s view of it.  All he has left to do to fully experience this romance is sleep with Troilus, and this conspicuous narrative silence implies that this has finally happened. 

Works Cited

Benson, Larry. ed. The Riverside Chaucer (New York: Houghton Mifflin) 1987

Sovereignty works out for Dorigen before she has to make a major decision for herself. The Franklin says, “Heere may men seen an humble, wys, accord; / Thus hath she take hir servant and hir lord–/ Servant in love, and lord in marriage./” (lines 791-793).  The couple is happy, and things are going well. After he leaves she is distraught but still in control of herself. However, once Aurelius “makes” the rocks “disappear,” incorporating magic into the tale, she is thrust into an awkward position. She must make a decision herself, control the fate of her own life as a man would. Aurelius gives her equal sovereignty in their relationship as well when he asks her to fulfill her promise. He also mentions honor, a thing belonging only to the world of men. He says, “Of yow, my sovereyn lady, but youre grace– / …Ye woot right wel what ye bihighten me;/…Madame, I spek it for the honour of yow/.” (lines 1325-1332). By mentioning both “sovereyn” and “honour” the Franklin is making it clear that she is being thrust into a male domain where she could choose to remain, keeping her sovereignty.

It is her reaction to this choice that causes her to loose her sovereignty. She proves herself incapable of exercising agency in the world of men, and being in charge of herself via her inability to make her own decision. She cannot survive in this realm of honor, thus she cannot be equally sovereign with Arveragus, a knight who masters the realm of honor, the realm of everything outside of the household. The choice gives Dorigen the chance to be honorable like her husband, to earn her sovereignty, to prove herself to be his equal, but she can not. Instead when given the choice she chooses to be subservient to him by listening to his advice when she cannot come to a conclusion of her own. She does not even act enough to ask for his advice. She simply weeps in a very week, womanly fashion and tells him what’s wrong, then he gives her advice and she takes it. The Franklin says, “Hoom cam Arveragus, this worthy knight/ And asked hire why that she weep so soore;/ And she gan wepen even lenger the more./ ‘Allas,’ quod she, ‘that evere was I born! / Thus have I seyd,’ quod she, ‘thus have I sworn’–/ And toold hym al as ye han herd before;/ ” (lines 1460-1465).

Arveragus then tells her to keep her truthfulness, “Buf if ye sholde youre trouthe kepe and save. / Trouthe is the hyeste thing that man may kepe’—/” (lines 1478-1479). She listens, and there are less images of her crying after this. She appears to be a little more stable when she does not have to make her own decisions, run her own life, share sovereignty. The word “crie” is only mentioned once after Arveragus tells her what to do, it is in line 1496 and that is the last time it is mentioned in the tale. With less description of weeping, it can be assumed that she cried less, a sign of her being more comfortable with the situation when she is being controlled.

When Aurelius frees her of her agreement, he does so not just for her, but for Arveragus’ honor. He knows that she decided to keep her promise because of her husband’s sense of honor, that Arveragus is the reason she showed up. Suddenly it is no longer about her at all. She is once again the passive, agency-less female. When he first speaks with her before freeing her of her bond, Aurelius says, “Madame, seyth to youre lord Arveragus/ That sith I se his grete gentillessse/ To yow…” before he says anything at all about her (lines 1526-1528). He also calls Arveragus her “lord.” If equal sovereignty was still recognized in the relationship he might have used “husband” or “knight” instead. After he releases her, “She thonketh hym upon hir knees al bare,/” (line 1545). Kneeling is definitely a position of submission. It is how one swore to one’s lord and king in Anglo-Saxon tradition, and later how one prayed to their heavenly lord. She is no longer even sharing sovereignty with this knight who wanted to be her lover, and once claimed her as his “soveryn lady” (line 1325).

After this the Franklin claims that she lived out her life with Arveragus sharing sovereignty, and that, “He cherisseth hire as though she were a queene,” (line 1554). There is a contradiction here. If Dorigen and Arveragus share sovereignty then she would also cherish him as a king, but that is not mentioned. Only Arveragus can perform an action now. She is a passive female. Had she also cherished him as a king, she would have shared sovereignty, but she does not cherish, she is cherished. She no longer performs actions at all within the text. One cannot be sovereign if one cannot act; if not in equal manner, at least in equal measure. The last two times in the text that she is mentioned, it is as an object. After line 1554 she is not mentioned for the rest of the tale other than Aurelius telling the magician of her sorrow, and his pity for her in lines 1595-1603. Even in these lines Averagus is the noble and honorable one, she is only sad. In the end Dorigen is cherished, and pitied, other than that she is a nearly invisible female, a specter in the world of men and honor.

            In the introduction, Arthur says that there are many ways to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but all of the interpretations he has read made him think that they were shallow, that there is more to the text than can be covered in one book or paper.  He claims that he realizes this is true for his book as well, but explains the importance of looking closely at the signs that the poet purposely spent a great amount of time adding detail to, showing that he wanted his audience to pay careful attention to them.  He also stresses learning about medieval sign theory from texts of the time, and brings up the problem that they appear to contradict each other.  Later he explains that this is only a problem for modern readers.  He quotes Augustine saying that the multiple, seemingly contradictory meanings of symbols in the Bible were there because of the will of God rather than by any error.  Arthur claims that Augustine’s comment is important because it shows that people had been accepting that symbols had contradictory meanings for centuries.  He outlines four points of view of medieval writers that were “mutually exclusive” rather than “hierarchical” and help modern readers understand medieval readers’ view of signs (11).  The first is the “realm of pure signification,” or, “lexical semantics,” where the sign just means what it means on a surface level.  The second is “epistemological relation,” or, “the power of a sign to cause an idea to come into the mind of the person who perceives it (11).”  The third is propositional context.” Of this last category he says that, “Medieval logicians were extremely sensitive to the fact that the meaning of a particular word in a given sentence was qualitatively different from the significato of the same word in isolation (12).”  He claims that if we keep these three points of view in mind it will help us gain a, “fuller appreciation of the poet’s ability to structure complex ideas around the various levels of audience interpretation of such objects (16).”

            Arthur, in the first chapter suggests that the Gawain poet wrote the poem for a purpose—to teach something.  He says that because the detailed descriptions stop the forward action in the poem, the poet must have meant it to be something more than entertainment.  He then uses the rest of the chapter to discuss the meaning behind the pentangle sign. Arthur points out that the action stops for fifty lines to describe the pentangle, and that the way in which it is described shows that he wanted it to be understood in the English, Christian context.  He then takes a few pages to describe how medieval students were taught to read signs.  They split signs into two categories, signs that, “signify naturally (naturaliter) and those that have their meaning by convention (ad placitum) (22).  Eventually he goes into the significance of the two English terms for the symbol on Gawain’s shield.  It is “pentangle” to the more educated, focusing on the meaning of five as a circular number, and “the endeles knot” by the rest of English society, which gave the symbol one of its main meanings—permanent trawth.  He says, “…the pentangle is imposed on trawth as a sign because trawth is both endless and five fold (31).”  Arthur quotes the OED which defines trawth as, “9. True religious belief or doctring; orthodoxy,” and, “10. That which is true, real, or actual (in a general or abstract sense); reality; spec. in religious use, spiritual reality as the subject of revelation or object of faith (45).” He points out that a circle is also endless, and claims that the Gawain poet chose a more complex endless figure because he wants to convey more complex ideas than the one a circle commonly represented—a wedding ring, endless commitment. 

Arthur also says that the word trawth was used for veritas when translating the Bible in to English.  Thus, “both the pentangle and the word trawth therefore signify Absolute Truth (46).” 

            In the rest of the book he points out that when Gawain starts out he is worthy of a shield with a pentangle and an image of the Virgin Mary on it because he was in a state of grace.  Arthur says that the poet’s use of passives to describe Gawain in the fifty lines explaining the shield show that Gawain’s attributes were bestowed on him by God or by rumors that he himself started, rather than being inherent in his character.  He also explains that the green girdle could never be a true sign for anything because it is so unstable.  Different characters try to assign it different meanings, but ultimately all seem to fail. He claims that if it signifies anything it signifies wanhope, a lack of faith in divine grace.  He says that Gawain’s wound a true sign for the nature of sin, he is wounded, and then he repents to the Green Knight, and the wound is healed leaving only a memory behind so the divine forgiving grace can be remembered. He sights several historical texts to back up all of these claims.  In the last chapter he says that he thought the meaning of the poem was, “Even the man in a state of grace has attained only a conditional perfection, one that can easily be lost (158).”  He later says that the poem also points out that Gawain lived and was fine, as will the rest of humanity. Basically, everyone makes mistakes.

            The arguments in this book were sound, and it was refreshing to see something other than New Criticism.  The book’s numerous citations of medieval texts taught about many more things than Gawain and the Green Knight.  It explained clearly how medieval scholars learned about signs and how they in turn interpreted them.  It also explained some interesting medieval Christian views about grace.  He established that Gawain was represented as being not completely perfect as the pentangle would suggests, but not completely flawed as the girdle would suggest, but that he is human, as the wound would suggest.  This certainly makes sense.  People eventually get over the mistakes they make though they remember them, just like how wounds eventually heal and leave only a scar for memory.  This seems like a perfectly viable message for the poet to intend.  The book left out pretty much any current view on the work; however, a historical approach to this text worked really well considering the amount of time and cultural changes between when it was written and now.

 I agree with Arthur’s arguments on what the signs meant to medieval society based on his evidence.  Had he not included it in the book I would have been completely lost.  His addition of historical citations really aided to the clarity of the book.  Also, it was a good move on Arthur’s part to keep bringing up the fact that the poem was meant to be interpreted in many different ways and to explain that he was only trying to get at one of the many meanings.  It makes scholars seem more credible when they admit that there is more than one side to a work. 

            In the introduction Sweeny discusses the importance of magic as a literary tool in medieval romances.  She claims that magic influenced almost every facet of society, from social to spiritual, aside from the fact that it was entertaining.  Magic, according to Sweeny, allowed a medieval romance author to concentrate on issues that were outside of, “the boundaries of Christian dogmatism (13).”  She says that magic crossed, “class, education, and gender barriers (13).”  There are two ways that magic is generally viewed in medieval romances by modern critics.  First there is “Celtic antecedent” which means that they are just copying old Celtic legends in a meaningless fashion (16).  Second is “practical” which means that magic is used for entertainment value alone, just to help the author move the plot (17).  She says that the most important idea to the book, “…is that magic is used to achieve a similar purpose across the range of texts under discussion, that is, evaluation of the characters’ values, identities or moral beliefs (19).”  She says that this is done by means of various magical tests that tell the reader something about the character.  She also claims that use of magic linked these texts to certain other important issues in society, such as the question of free will.  Sweeny defines magic as, “…the phenomena which intellectuals would have recognized as natural or supernatural occurrences which demonstrate the influence of man over nature or mankind (29).”

            She claims that by seeing magic as a literary device, critics can explore non-romantic aspects of medieval culture that influenced the romances, “such as classical learning, history, theology and philosophy (77).”  She says that magic in French romances allowed them to give, “ ‘ supernatural authority’ to secular issues (77).” She uses Marie’s lai “Yonec” as an example.  The fact that the wife’s prayers are answered by a lover coming in through the window as a bird, “suggests that even God uses magic and adultery to teach the needy how to assert their will and punish the unjust (79).”  She also uses Chrétien’s Le Chevalier de la Charrette.  Chrétien shows Lancelot’s “questionable morality” by making him depend upon magic and only have “mixed success” with the magical tests he faces (83).  She says that Marie and Chrétien deliberately used magic in their texts to show certain personality traits of their characters.  Sweeny explains the meanings of the magical tests when she says:

Magical encounters force the characters to put to the test the strength of their sense of personal identity, their social status, and their faith in God.  When a character requires magical devices—such as Yvain’s need to hide with the aid of Lunete’s ring—or is at the mercy of magical encounters—such as Lancelot’s false encounter with lions at the Sword Bridge—it is clear that the character has not completely matured (87).

            In the rest of the book she discusses how the insular romances were, “absorbed by social issues and represent ‘socially subversive’ ideas (116).”  She also discusses how insular authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries “reconfigured” romance. She claims that they still paid careful attention to the magical elements of the original continental tales.  She says that Chaucer also uses magic as a test in The Franklin’s Tale.  Sweeny ends with the claim that magic, “…engaged and intrigued some of the greatest minds of the medieval period (169).”

            This book was a little fragmented, and sometimes seemed to repeat itself too much.  It was clear after the first five times she mentioned it, that magical tests allowed the reader to judge the main character.  However, the overall points were valid.  Magic did seem to be used as a test of morality in many medieval romances. It did tie religion, politics, and folklore into the tales thus involving all classes of medieval society, even though that did not matter to the lower classes who were not literate.  She has a little conspiracy theory in the introduction that the genre of medieval romance was encouraged by royalty because of the emphasis on loyalty to one’s lord.  While the idea is interesting, it does not seem very believable.  These texts were probably simply a product of the values of society that were already firmly in place.  Also in the introduction, she claims that in some tales the magic itself is more important than the main character.  This does not make any sense.  If one was to write a story about magic, then it would be written about magic and the main character would probably be a wizard or witch or victim to horrible magic rather than a knight who happens upon a way to make it storm over a city, or who happens to need rings to make him invisible.  The way romances are set up puts more emphasis on the characters than the magic.  It is definitely used as a test in these texts, but the character’s ability or inability to pass these tests is more important than the tests themselves. All in all Sweeny does a great job of explaining the importance of magic in medieval romances, even if she does get a little carried away sometimes in the introduction.

            In the first part of the article Pugh stresses the Boethian mode of Troilus, the playful, romance mode of Pandarus, and the survival mode of Criseyde.  He elaborates on this to say that Pandarus sees everything that happens as a game of dice while Troilus actually has the love of Criseyde at stake, and Criseyde has both her love for Troilus and her survival at stake.  He stresses that these three characters are playing the same game but with very different perspectives.  The stakes are different for all of them, and not all of them are taking it seriously.  Pugh points out the irony that Troilus uses his, “playful manner to hide his feelings for Criseyde rather than to advance his goal in the courtly love game (384).”  He says that Troilus is trapped between his private and public identity.  Pandarus teaches Troilus to, “assert individual desire through strategic performance (384).”

He says that playing is not always fun, and that courtly love masks the performative cruelties in the text.  Pugh claims that every character is cruel at one point or another during the narrative.  He observed that medieval thinkers proposed that games could quickly go from fun to, “harmful affairs (380).”  He says that the cruelty involved in the game has a, “deep relevance to Chaucer’s text (382).”  Pugh also observes that play is where, “alternating identities may be manipulated and explored (383).”  He points out that Pandarus very obviously performs multiple identities to get what he wants.  He calls this a, “choreographed seduction (385).”

Pugh claims that once the lovers’ fortune changes, Criseyde has to use a different strategy to survive.  He says that her refusal to state why she cannot go back to Troy in her letter to Troilus proves that she does not want to go back.  Since everybody already knows about their relationship she would not be giving anything away by saying why she could not return.   Criseyde allows herself to have agency because she needs to survive, “in a hostile environment (389).”  He adds that he thought Criseyde really did love Troilus. 

Pugh says that once Troilus dies and has his revelation, Criseyde becomes a tragic figure, “because she ties herself to the emptiness of earthly life (391).”  He discusses the strength of Fortune in the end of the text, claiming that it keeps the players in the game, especially Criseyde, even when they want out.  He says that though the mortals are under Fortune’s control, Fortune is revealed to be under God’s control.  Pugh claims that during the revelation, “Life itself appears to be the ultimate game, played with a game master beyond mortal comprehension (393).”  He says that Troilus laughs during his revelation because he is playing with divine love and realizes the impermanence of the earthly world.  He says that, “the close of the narrative thus apparently highlights the stability of celestial love, the transience of earthly delights, and the folly of human games (395).” 

Pugh says that Troilus was rewarded for his part in the game of courtly love, despite his cruelty throughout and the fact that the affair does not tie in with Christian values, being outside of marriage.  He claims that this victory of Troilus is, “the result of some arbitrariness in Christianity that privileges this sinful man rather than the sinful woman or panderer (395).” 

This article was well written and made good points.  It seems as if Pugh should have stuck to the idea of earthly and divine game and the idea that Fortune is controlled by God in the text, and the transience of worldly love.  The bit at the end about Troilus’ salvation being arbitrary does not make sense.  First of all, he does not even get to go to Christian heaven, so what makes Pugh think that he is being judged by Christian standards?  Secondly, if he is being judged by Christian standards this choice is certainly not arbitrary medieval Christianity makes it clear that men are better than women.  If a medieval priest had the choice of who to send to Heaven, a mostly straight male warrior who was also royalty, a woman who was a widower and who slept with someone out of wedlock, or a panderer who was actively bisexual and caused the sex out of wedlock to happen, who would he choose?  I’m pretty sure the choice of mostly straight male royal warrior would not be arbitrary, especially considering the Church’s view on homosexual sex, and on women who are sexually active out of wedlock.  There’s that whole virgin or whore choice for women, and once you’ve had sex out of marriage you are in the whore category in medieval Christianity, while it seems that men just made a mistake.  The rest of the article’s points were sound, courtly love is a cruel game in Troilus and Criseyde, and Pandarus does view it as a game of dice rather than having serious stakes like the lovers.  The revelation at the end does put earthly love into perspective, and shows that Fortune is controlled by God.  This article is useful to anybody studying courtly love in Troilus and Criseyde as a game.

            He starts the article by declaring that he wants to figure out why the Green Knight looks and acts the way he does.  This brings him into a discussion of identity.  He starts off by pointing out that the Green Knight himself says that he is not, “ ‘an ancient and well known hazard’ nor an emissary of Death ‘summoning’ Gawain (223).”  The Green Knight instead says that he is a wonder made by Morgan le Fay.  This is in reply to Gawain’s fear when he goes to the Green Chapel that the Green Knight is, “the Devil or a diabolical agent out to destroy him (224).”  Besserman claims that the Green Knight does not deny being diabolical, but says that he is not out to destroy Gawain. 

            He then discusses the parallels between Gawain and the Green Knight.  He points out that they are both the emissary of either Arthur or Morgan, and that they both were “bygyled” or “enchanted” by women, Lady Bertilak for Gawain and Morgan le Fay for the Green Knight (225).  He also says that both Gawain and the Green Knight have multiple identities throughout the narrative.  He claims that the fact that the Green Knight has a human name adds to the normal knight aspect of his identity, and he claims that this name means “bright play” among other things, and that it resembles the name of one of Arthur’s enemies in an older Arthurian tale (226).  Besserman says that the Green Knight acts both as a friend of Morgan le Fay by giving Gawain sexual temptations, and also, “as a pious host and New Testament-quoting confessor who purges Gawain and praises him,” after he wounds him (227).”  He claims that the Green Knight should not be viewed as being half good and half bad, but should be seen as the duck/rabbit picture.  He is both simultaneously but we can only comprehend one form at a time. 

            Besserman says that medieval society would be able to understand this type of identity because of three main things.  The first is, “symbolization de bono and de malo (228).” The second is the idea of “felix culpa, or ‘the fortunate fall,’ through which histories of Adam, Aeneas, Troy, Christ, Gawain, and Camelot may be linked because each hero undergoes a trial and suffers in defeat that is providentially vindicated as a kind of victory (228-229).”  The third is the “hypostatic union” or the duel natures of Christ as human and divine (229).  He says that the hypostatic union would have helped the reader understand the identity of the Green Knight the most, but he points out that the Green Knight does not represent Christ, and is just constructed similarly with, “supernatural/human qualities and actions (230).”

            He then goes on to randomly point out religious moments in the poem.  He says that the Green Knight’s appearance in the celebrating court reminds them of Easter with his action of dying and immediately being alive again.  Besserman also discusses the fact that Gawain cannot see the Green Knight’s castle, where the “evil Morgan is,” until he, “…invoked Jesus and Mary…, has prayed, lamented his sins, and crossed himself three times…(230).” 

            This article is well written and has some good points about the Green Knight having as much of an identity crisis as Gawain.  The parallels he points out between the two make sense, and seem to be significant to the text.  The duck/rabbit example was really great, it definitely clarified Besserman’s point.  It was a good move on his part to explain how a medieval audience would understand the multiple identities of the Green Knight through logic and theology.  He also made a good point about how, though the Green Knight may have multiple identities, like Christ, he is not necessarily a Christ figure.  It makes sense that a medieval author who was surely educated by the church would create a supernatural figure that mimicked the makeup of Christ.  It shows that Besserman understands the complexity of the poem, and it helps the reader to fully understand it as well.  There was no reason for him to point out the other religious scenes in the narrative.  They were good things to point out, but could have been turned into another article in themselves, and probably should have been.  He only raises questions with these scenes and then ends the article.  Also, they do not tie into the identity of Gawain or the Green Knight very well, or at least he does not explain how they do.  Yes, the Green Knight reminded the court of Easter, but he still is not just a Christ figure.  Yes, Gawain had to pray to see the castle, but why? And what does that have to do with the main points of the article?   Overall, though, the article was informative and made sense.  It would be a good source of information for anybody doing research on the identity of the Green Knight.

            The argument that Friedman is refuting claims that Morgan le Fay sent the Green Knight to Arthur’s court in order to cleanse it.  Baughan apparently claims that a main aspect of the poem is chastity, and that this is the reason that Arthur cannot harm the Green Knight, even though he swings twice with the ax.   He also says that this is the reason Gawain can harm the Green Knight, Gawain is the chaste knight.  Supposedly Baughan also said that Morgan succeeded in her plot to because she shames Arthur, and proves that Gawain is not a perfect knight. 

            Friedman claims that none of these points make sense.  He points out that Morgan le Fay is evil at this point, mostly because she is old and ugly.  He says that she was pretty when she was a healer and got increasingly ugly as she learned black magic.  Though this makes sense, there is no reason that she could not have a more complex personality.  Her ugliness, however, proves the case well enough for Friedman.  He also claims that one of the main morals of the story cannot be chastity because in other tales Gawain apparently has lots and lots of lovers.  He also says that in the fourteenth century Gawain has a reputation of being a lecher.  He thinks this because of the Wife of Bath’s Tale.  While this may be true, even Friedman allows for the fact that Gawain was not in any adulterous relationships, unlike Arthur.  This little fact makes the chastity argument seem more believable.  He claims that chastity is only important in the temptation scenes, where it is barely and issue.  Friedman says that Gawain is never actually tempted physically, and, “he kisses her with no greater fervor than he renders up the kisses to her husband in the evening (264).” He also claims that Baughan is absolutely wrong about Morgan succeeding.  This is apparently because Arthur sounds too calm when he is reassuring Guenevere after the Green Knight leaves.  However, for one who makes fun of Baughan for not being familiar with romance, it is interesting that he should think Arthur using flowery speech towards his wife signified something in particular.  Everybody uses flowery speech towards Guenevere all the time.  Even if she was panicking it seems like the men surrounding her would speak to her just as formally as if they were sitting down having a nice calm dinner.  That is definitely a trait of romances, the speech is always formal and elaborate. 

            This article did a good job of representing two points of view, and making the reader want to side with the view that Friedman was trying to refute.  He even uses the word “combat” when talking about refuting Baughan’s argument.  Some of Baughan’s points were good, especially the one about Morgan potentially wanting to cleanse Camelot, after all she does bring Arthur to Avalon at the end of his life, which suggests that there is still some good in her.  Friedman obviously has a strong familiarity with Arthurian texts; however, he relies too much on this familiarity, ignoring the text in front of him.  This article is useful to anyone interested in the role of Morgan le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, however, it is mostly useful because of Baughan’s views which are creative and respect the complexity of the text in its own right.

Stretter claims that the strength of the brotherly bond tradition gives Chaucer the ability to discuss the extreme power of love. He points out that although Chaucer got this tale from Boccaccio, Boccaccio’s version did not involve a brotherly bond. He claims that, “Chaucer’s decision to add sworn brotherhood in the Knight’s Tale therefore seems especially significant (237).” He sights a text called Amis and Amiloun a text involving brotherly tradition that Chaucer would have read he claims that this text, “establishes a world in which a formal oath between men supercedes all other bonds and responsibilities, whether familial, matrimonial, political, or religious (237).” He discusses the scene where one of them kills his children in order to cure the other’s leprosy because of their sworn brotherly bond. According to Stretter, stories involving a brotherly bond did not usually set love and the brotherly bond against each other. The bond always came first, even if it meant sacrificing your family and romance always came second. By putting the romance first, Chaucer does something revolutionary. Stretter points out that the reader does not even know about the bond until the moment that Palamon starts to complain to Arcite that he must help him instead of compete with him with his love for Emelye because they are sworn brothers. Chaucer did this to juxtapose the two types of love, brotherly and erotic. He says, “ Whereas brotherhood is traditionally imagined as constant, egalitarian and selfless, the kind of love Palamon and Arcite feel for Emelye is fickle, domineering, and above all, selfish (239).”

While some claim that the love triangle between Arcite, Palamon, and Emelye may involve deeply buried homosexual tendencies between Arcite and Palamon, Stretter says that it could not. He explains that homosexual identity was very different in the Middle Ages and that the friendship bond was generally not thought to involve sexuality. He says, “In spite of what a post-Freudian audience might see as the glaring possibility of sexualized friendship, friendship in the Middle Ages was conceived as a genuine alternative to sexual desire, as something other, not as sex in different garb (241).”

Stretter claims that Lydgate takes a similar story to the Knight’s Tale, and makes brotherly love the first priority. He claims that the Fabula Duorum Mercatorum can be viewed as an answer to the Knight’s Tale. Lydgate’s poem is based on Disciplina clericalis , a story about male friendship that was well known. The tale involves two merchants who were from different countries but became associated through reputation. He claims that the, “Fabula essentially functions as test case for classical friendship theory’s claims about the power of magnanimous friendship to conquer selfish desire (243).” This poem involves two friends in love with the same woman; however, it allows friendship to, “vanquish Cupid” unlike the Knight’s Tale (243). He points out that although it is troublesome to modern readers that the lady in the tale does not mind switching fiancées Lydgate probably did this on purpose for reasons other than anti-feminism. He says, “…Lydgate’s choice to erase female subjectivity is dictated by a desire to explore the power and limits of the rhetoric of male friendship (247).”

This article was well argued. His point about the love triangle not involving homosexual issues made perfect sense. He does a good job of getting across the idea that homosexual identity was different if it existed at all in the Middle Ages. He also does a good job using examples from Amis and Amiloun to show the amazing power of the brotherly bond, and juxtaposing its primary importance in this text with its secondary importance in the Knight’s Tale.

His discussion of Fabula Duorum Mercatorum was logical and easy to follow; although, the part about Lydgate erasing “female subjectivity” in order to push the “limits of the rhetoric of male friendship” seemed a little weak (247). It seems more realistic to assume that Lydgate was writing in an opinion on women that was simply a part of how he viewed the world. She was property. The fact that it worked with his theme of male friendship may not have been on purpose.

The main scene Crocker uses is the bedroom scene, where January is being very active in trying to elicit a response out of May who is frighteningly unresponsive. She says that May’s passivity here gives her agency over January who is trying to get her to be active. Were May to respond at all in this scene it would give January agency. Her lack of response is assumed to mean that, “she thinks his performance is inadequate (187).” She also says that May’s, “lack of want thus makes her frightening because she reflects the naked vulnerability of an empty masculinity that nonetheless seeks to animate itself through an immovable fiction of femininity (187).”

She claims that throughout the Merchant’s Prologue and Tale there is a competition going on between the Merchant and the Clerk that proves that even between men there is agency and passivity. Thus this theme also comes out in the tale as well. She says , “From the beginning of the tale, in sarcastic asides and snide dismissals, the narrator undercuts the model of passive, obedient wife that the encomium outlines and January seeks. This strategy is meant to give the speaker a two-fold claim to agency, over January and over May (189).”

Crocker also points out that the narrator has a certain idea of what females are like, and May gains agency over him by proving him wrong. She says that the narrator claims that all women are essentially shrews. The narrator even goes so far as to make Persephone come across as a shrew. However, May, instead of completely paralleling Persephone, proves herself not a shrew to the reader, while the narrator still views her as such. Thus she manages to make both January and the narrator happy by making it look like she is performing their fantasies about femininity while she gets to do what she wants. She claims that

By taking on the identity the narrator designs for her, she takes from him the ability to manage her agency, showing in turn the absurdity of the speaker’s claim that he manages feminine agency by identifying the performativity of feminine passivity….As the tale works out, January is not blind but may not see, while May is not passive but is not a shrew (193).

So, in the end Crocker claims that May wins over all of the men by simply being as passive as is humanly possible. In her conclusion, she discusses how all of these characters come together to give an absurd, but somewhat realistic example of some of the, “ways that men and women collaborate to make fictions of gender convincing (195).”

Crocker’s article was a little hard to follow. The argument for May not being a shrew was unclear. She kept claiming that May was not a shrew but never explained why except by listing some adjectives. She describes May as being, “crafty, wily, and cunning…(193)” but these seem to be positive words for what the narrator would perceive as a shrewish qualities. Perhaps if she added exactly what she meant by “shrew” and what a “shrew’s” qualities were and then explained what qualities May had that made her not a shrew, then her argument on this point would be strong. As it stands, though, it is very hard to follow and not very convincing.

Her points on masculine agency were a little bit confusing. In the end she does not really follow up on the agency struggle between the Merchant and the Clerk. She sort of mentions it and its parallels within the tale but then never goes back to it. Had she analyzed this point a little bit more, the whole article would have been stronger and more interesting.

Crocker’s arguments for May’s passivity actually giving her agency over January were well stated. Her examples made sense and her claims were clear on this point. The quote that made this point the best was one involving the bedroom scene. She says, “Because January cannot animate May’s passivity, he looses credibility as a masculine agent, no matter how aggressively he dominates her body (187).” This seems to be the main gist of this part of her argument.

She claims that the reason that this has not been previously realized is that the character of the Lady Bertilac has been over-simplified. Rowley says, “…the Lady’s performances of her gendered courtly identity can neither be read as unquestionably grounded in her body and her own (feminine) desire, nor be reduced to the command of her husband (159).” This is oversimplification occurs constantly because of how scholars in the past have badly edited lines 1283-87. Apparently, scholars such as Tolkien, Gordon, and Davis added unnecessary punctuation to make a thought that the lady had seem like a thought that the narrator had. They claimed that this change was justified because the narrator did not shift point of view between characters, and because it would give too much of the plot away too soon if she was exposed as knowing Gawain’s coming competition. She claims that these lines should be read as Lady Bertilac herself thinking that, “Gawain would not be interested in her no matter how beautiful she were because of his upcoming ordeal…(167)” This line happens to be way before the reader is supposed to know that Lord Bertilac is the Green Knight, and so Tolkien and other scholars saw this as some sort of mistake that gave too much away and chose to make it the voice of the editor. Their goal was to make it seem as if the Lady Bertilac did not know what Gawain was about to go through. At any rate, Rowley says that these lines, if translated correctly, also give away the intention of Lady Bertilac to seduce Gawain for one reason or another. After these lines, she points out that the narrator questions the intentions of the lady in the second bedroom scene, thus making her identity mysterious, and constantly changing. In Lines 1549-50 the narrator says

Thus the noble lady tested him, and tried him often

To bring him to harm, whatever else she intended (168).

Rowley points out that the narrator must be “raise[ing] the question of her intentions,” in order to, “call attention to the problematic of intention (168).” In another place, she points out, the narrator mentions the lady’s purpose and her love separately. Rowley claims that this is in order to make the reader suspicious as to the lady’s intentions and why her purpose is different from her love.

Paralleling this is the construction of Gawain’s identity. Rowley says that editors over the years have often added punctuation to make it sound as if the lady snuck into his broom slyly rather than having Gawain seem to be sleeping in a sly manner. She says that this is because scholars in Tolkien’s day wanted to read this text in a realist manner, getting rid of ambiguities as much as possible. Rowley claims that the ambiguities are supposed to exist. Although, she adds, people still try to ignore these ambiguities about Gawain’s character today.

Another scene where she points out the apparent construction of identity is at the feast when Gawain does not want to be courteous to the lady and flirt with her but feels as though he has to in order to be consistent with his reputation. However, the whole time he is afraid that people will think he loves the lady. She says that Gawain’s identity is based on his actions, and that in this scene his, “choice to act in a manner consistent with this public persona despite possible misunderstandings highlights the lack of control one has over the interpretation of one’s actions and motivations (170).” Thus, it also highlights the lack of control Gawain has over his identity.

Although, I am inclined to agree with Rowley and I find her arguments sound, it seems as if the author probably did not intend this meaning. Granted this is a moot point since people are now trained to take a text at text value and pay little attention to the intention of the author. From what little I know of this period it seems more likely that the author was making a statement about the constructed nature of courtly love and courtly society in general rather than the constructed nature of the “self.” Though, whichever way it is interpreted, the lines that Rowley pointed out specifically, and the other ambiguities do seem to be an important part of the text. Reading it without the ambiguities does seem as if it would lead to misinterpretation.