General Information about Enlighteners in the English literature

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight belongs to a literary genre known as romance. As it refers to medieval literature, the word "romance" does not mean a love story, although that sense of the word is ultimately derived from the medieval romance genre. Originally, Romance referred to the various European languages derived from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. The word became applied to the popular tales written in Romance languages, particularly French. In this sense, a romance is a tale of adventure involving knights on a quest. Elements of fantasy and magic are always present: There may be dragons or monsters to battle, mysterious places to visit, or peculiar spells or curses to be broken. Damsels in distress frequently appear in the plot as victims to be rescued or as initiators of the quest. Typically, the romance story begins at a noble court, where the knights receive a challenge before setting out on a journey to accomplish their task. As with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the challenge may come from a mysterious visitor. The knights travel far from home, encountering terrible hardships and doing battle with their enemies before achieving their goal and returning to the court to tell their stories. Every romance includes basic set pieces, such as the arming of the hero and the recitation of the names of famous knights. The romance genre was so formulaic and so universally familiar that by the Gawain-poet's time, it had long since become clichéd. Chaucer, for example, was able to do a spot-on parody of the genre in his ridiculous Tale of Sir Thopas, part of the Canterbury Tales. Clichéd or not, the romance remained popular for centuries before finally reaching its logical end in Miguel de Cervantes's romance spoof/homage Don Quixote, first published in 1605.
The most fertile field of the romance genre was the Arthurian romance. The legendary King Arthur, his court at Camelot, and his Knights of the Round Table are almost as familiar today as they would have been in the Gawain-poet's time. However, most modern readers know only the stories set down in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur, circa 1470, actually a late entry in Arthurian development. Literally hundreds of Arthurian tales pre-dating Malory exist in numerous variations, some of which directly contradict each other.
Although the tales were usually set in England (or Logres, a legendary pre-England), Arthurian romances were produced all over Europe. The masters of the genre were the French, most notably Chrètien de Troyes, who wrote a definitive group of Arthurian romances in the late 1100s. French dominance of this field, with its legendary history of England, was part of a larger cultural tension. The Norman French conquered England in 1066, and although Norman dominance had ended by the early 1200s, France and England remained bitter rivals throughout the Middle Ages. In the Gawain-poet's time, there was once again open warfare between the two nations, spurred by English claims to the French throne. This literary and political rivalry has implications for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In French Arthurian romances, the character of Sir Gawain has a spotty reputation. Although Gawain is portrayed positively in the early the French tradition, in later French tales, Gawain becomes a womanizer, a confirmed sinner, and even a villain. By contrast, in English Arthurian tales, Gawain is almost always upheld as the paragon of knightly virtue, and in a sense, he becomes a specifically English model of the ideal knight. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight affirms this tradition.
Given these exaggerated and sometimes conflicting influences, romances had an understandable tendency to become silly and sensationalist. More than one author attempted to reform the genre by using it as a vehicle for serious moral messages. For example, in the Arthurian romances of the quest for the Holy Grail, purity of heart, faith, and right behavior, more so than mere strength of arms, are required for the knights to complete their quest. Similarly, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight puts a moral lesson into a luxurious wrapper: In between the high fantasy, the sparkling jewels, and the gilded armor is a sharp exploration of virtue, temptation, and human nature. Gawain's toughest battle is not with the monsters in the wilderness, but with his lovely and refined hostess; he fights with words, not weapons. He is defeated not by superior strength but by his own inner weakness — fear of death, most of all. In comparison with typical romances, the level of violence and bloodshed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is remarkably restrained. In fact, there is no conventional combat at all, because both Gawain and the Green Knight kneel willingly to receive their death-stroke from the other, and in the end, no one is seriously hurt.
The poet positions Gawain at the center of the unresolved tensions between chivalry, courtly love, and Christianity. Gawain is famed as the most courteous of knights. In one sense, this creates the expectation that his behavior will be irreproachable; in another, it assumes that he will be the most delightful of lovers for the lady who can snare him. The Lady of Hautdesert exploits this tension to the fullest as she attempts to seduce Gawain. But the poet has also made clear that the beloved lady whom Gawain serves first is the Virgin Mary. As a thoroughly Christianized knight, he is forced to walk a fine line in defending himself. He cannot offend a lady, but neither can he give his hostess what she wants, because in doing so, he would be committing a sexual sin, as well as breaking chivalric loyalty and honor by betraying his host.