Remember that there are NO blog questions for Friday's class. Instead, we'll do an in-class writing response based on a big idea in Part IV of the poem. However, here is an idea to consider from an essay by Gawain scholar Sherron E. Knopp:
"The poet takes seriously the Christian mandate to strive for perfection. But ideals are perfect, simple, and abstract, while the reality to which they must be applied is complex and unpredictable. In his refusal to take that reality seriously--and it includes his own human fallibility--Gawain sets himself on a collision course with humiliation and flirts with contemptus mundi [the contempt of the world] before he is able or willing to accept any weakness in himself. Because failure is natural and unavoidable, the poet finds hid dogged zealousness more than a little comical. And it is this attitude that makes the poem..."profoundly Christian.""
Consider the nature of Gawain's "fall" at the end of the poem and how Bertilak, Arthur, and Gawain respond to it. Why do they all see it so differently? Is the ending of the poem "profoundly Christian" in its perspective, or is it more of a "pagan" world view that emerges from the Christian/chivalric fabric? We'll think more about this on Friday...
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