Gawain in Wace, Lazamon, and Alliterative Morte Arturo: A Cultural Comparison :: Essays Papers

Gawain in Wace, Lazamon, and Alliterative Morte Arturo A Cultural Comparison Martin B. Shichtman, in his essay on Wace and Layamon, describes history as the transcribing of the illusions of an age (1987, 106). He states that for umteen scholars in the diaphragm Ages, translating histories was not so much a thing of setting down, word for word, what were considered to be hard facts, but of expounding on the truths behind the solid, as they were relevant to the time and audience for which they were written. This often touch the omission of some material from the primary source, the addition of new material to it, and the reinterpretation of even sots and attitudes expressed in the work.The figure of Gawain throughout Arthurian literature is an enkindle one he appears in more texts as a subsidiary character than any other(a)(a) knight named, and often gains glory even at the expense of the main hero (Busby 1980, 5). The first characteristic which separates him from the other knights is his relationship to Arthur it is usually stated that he is Arthurs sisters son, a kinship that is institute from William of Malmesburys Gesta Regum Anglorum (c. 1125) and Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) onward (Busby 1980, 31). However, it is notable that Gawain often seems more like a sheath than an individual in Old French literature he is neer the subject of a biographical romance, as are most of the other knights, he never has one particular ladys name associated with him, and he is often used as a constant against which other knights are judged, the entire embodiment of good qualities, more a symbol of perfection than an existent person (Busby 1980, 7).Because of this, he makes an especially good study when looking at what an author considered to be perfection within his society. In the various shipway in which Gawain is portrayed, he often serves as a focal flower from which to observe some of the cultural changes and ulterior moti ves present in the legends of which he is a part.The basic story of Arthur (and Gawain) found in Geoffreys Historia was later translated and reworked many another(prenominal) times by Wace in the Norman French Roman de Brut, in an Anglo-Norman fragment, by Layamon in the Early Middle English Brut, and in the Middle English Alliterative Revival piece the Morte Arthure (the AMA), among others.