Our English Literature Group came to the end of the poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and found out what happened to Sir Gawain and how it all ended. SPOILER ALERT – There is a happy ending!

Our Group Leader David was able to take us beyond the text of the poem – thought to have been written down in the late 1300s in the dialect of North West England – and guided us through the structure, and the techniques used by the poet. The name of the poet is still unknown and has been gifted the name Gawain.

David also explained why a poem from the late 1300s has survived to the present day, and the history of its discovery and the attempts to recast the English into usage that we can understand. The elements of Honesty, Humility, Faithfulness and Chivalry seem not to have aged at all. Also the elements of Revenge, Vendetta and Deception seem as relevant today as they must have been in the late 1300s.

We have now finished studying this text. Our next text, starting on 14 January 2025, will tackle Geoffrey Chaucer’s General Prologue to Canterbury Tales along with some of the individual tales told to the pilgrims.