Chaucer Green Knight

Guinivere · Guest Gender:

A few years ago, I read The Green Knight as told by Chaucer. I was not doing it for a class. It seemed to be a metaphor for something else. Agriculture? It reminded me of John Barleycorn with the symbolism. Does anyone know exactly what it means?

DWill · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:18 am Post subject:

I remember from my English Lit days Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but nothing about the Green Knight by Chaucer. The author wrote anonymously during Chaucer's time. I still have my old anthology. The intro to the poem says: "The motif of the green man's decapitation originates in very ancient folklore, probably in a vegetation myth in which the beheading would have been a ritual death that insured the return of spring to the earth and the regrowth of the crops." The poem grafts onto the traditonal motif a strong Christian theme. It's about 50 pages long, and as I recall quite beautiful and interesting. I should reread it. Thanks for mentioning it.
DWill

Guinivere · Guest Gender:

You're right. I thought he retold it but I wasn't sure. The renewal of life is a recurring pagan theme, so you're probably right. I keep digging for either a deeper meaning or a more literal meaning or a nifty deeper pagan reference. But the pagans of yore seemed to have one track minds and a lot of their stuff is all about renewal or fertility because what else would you want?
I was excited to find out the holy grail could be based on Cernunos and that Arthurian characters names are all dreived from much older savage pagan names. Now, I keep trying to find out more stuff like that because it floats my boat.


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