Christian Symbolism In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Being merciful is showing God’s dealings with mankind and is a quality of God. Bertilak refers Gawain to being a knight worthy and has no equal. Bertilak exclaims that he was sent on this task to find Gawain and see what he is about. The revelation after the Bertilak spares Gawain’s life and knowing about the girdle all along leads Gawain to truly embrace his flaws and humility for the first time and in so doing to find atonement and a more stable base for Christian behavior than the rule-based chivalry of Arthur’s court. “Sir Gawain And The Green Knight” shows Christian ideas and shows behavior towards everyone.

“It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then” (qtd. in Root, Jerry, and Martindale, 90). Although arguments have been made that C.S. Lewis’s novel, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is purely a children’s book, the novel itself holds a deeper religious meaning due to its parallels with The Bible and the morals it supports.

This story follows how the narrator of Beowulf struggles between the Christian beliefs and values of the narrator and the Pagan activates done by the charterers in the story. The narrator however does say he believes that Beowulf would have been Pagan, but still thinks that the trust Beowulf has in God makes him a Christian. There are many references to God in this story. For example in Beowulf it states “Afterwards a boy-child was sent to Shield, a cub in the yard, a comfort sent by

This is also the case in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Greene Knight by an unknown author, in this poem, Sir Gawain represents an outstanding example of Christian knighthood and has to withstand worldly temptations to prove his faith in God, which he fails in the end. While researching about this topic, I found several examples of texts concerning with the religious symbolism in this poem. However, most of those articles I found were either quite long and encompassing, which gave them a lack of clarity (see Coe, for example), or they were focusing on a single aspect of Christian symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and looking at recurrences in other literature. As the poem is riddled with references to Christianity, I wanted to clarify the coherency and recurring nature of one theme in particular, which the Gawain poet elucidates throughout the

In a poem known as the Essay on Man, it claims, “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man.” This means that man should not bother to know God, but to know himself. The reason given for this belief is that man cannot know God so it is not profitable to gain knowledge of Him. Catholics also believe that man cannot know God but they go on to say that God reveals himself to us so that we can learn about Him. According to the Catholic Church, “It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will.”

Both Beowulf and Redcrosse Knight epitomize the ideal saint in two separate periods, The Middle Age and The Early Modern Period. The tale of Beowulf demonstrates the impact of the spread of Christianity in the early Danish paganistic culture that values courageous deeds and boldness most importantly else. Beowulf's bravery is investigated in three separate clashes, those with Grendel, Grendel's mom, and the ocean creature. Redcrosse Knight, the hero of "The Faerie Queen," remains for the ethicalness of Holiness however he is the individual Christian battling against malevolence. Quite a bit of Beowulf is committed to verbalizing and showing the gallant code, which values quality, boldness, and devotion in fighters, neighborliness, liberality, political ability, and great notoriety in all individuals.

After Augustine converts to Christianity and he hears the child saying, “tolle lege”, Augustine is certain that God is speaking to him. A Christmas Carol is obviously a work of fiction and the ghosts serve as an interesting vehicle to give an interesting commentary about what it means to live a life of fulfillment. The reader is left with the comfort of feeling that they are clearly not as miserable as Scrooge was and pleased with the arc of the redemption narrative. On the other hand, Confessions is viewed as the first autobiography which implies that everything in the book happened.

He spoke into a world filled with reformation induced confusion, and is remembered mostly for his wager. He argues we must wager on God’s existence, because we cannot know with certainty if he does or does not. Then he appeals to the reader to wager that God does exist, for it is the greater gain. If one bets in

Beowulf, still keeping his faith in God, believes that God is punishing him for his wrong doing, and he is sorta right. (Death ln 16-19). Perhaps Beowulf realizes his mistake in trusting in the worldly things to keep him safe and secure, rather than God, but it is revealed to the reader that this is not the case. Against impossible odds, Beowulf chose to rely on his armor and weapons to keep him safe; however, these things failed him. (Death ln 89-90).

This "state of grace" is brought about through the work of Beowulf, who delivers the Danes from evil. To be sure, hero-worship is a fundamental part of the Germanic heroic tradition, but the infusion of religion and moralistic language edges this element of the story toward the messiah-worship of Christianity. This explicitly religious form of hero-worship begins with King Hrothgar's reception of Beowulf "Now Holy God has, in His goodness, guided him here...to defend us from Grendel,"

Jefferson is also once again seen as a contributor of this idea in his writing of the Declaration of Independence stating “all men are created equal.” Differences between the colonies and Europe on this idea were completely different in that the Kings and Monarchy used Christian doctorines to sustain their rule over their kingdoms. The third idea was that central government threatened polity and that a central government possessed too much power over man and many patriots rejected that notion and believed in a divided government unlike old European ways where there political theory was that god entitled political sovereignty to the Monarch’s rule. The fourth point that both deist and evangelicals believed was a cause of the revolution was the lack of virtue the English Government had shown.

The thing that stands out when reading the stories of Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the Canterbury Tales is that the writers use Christianity to show conflicts in human nature. Also with these stories taking place in different times with writers who have different opinions about Christianity and how it has influences Society. For example, in Beowulf, the writer chooses to mash up the ideas of Christianity and paganism because during the time that the writer was transcribing the story there were missionaries trying to convert the Anglo-Saxons that lived in Britain, so the missionaries used Beowulf as a way to reach the pagans. This is also been done to other stories like in the Viking legend Thor god of thunder where at the end of the story the world

Faith as part of the code of chivalry can be seen as a major idea throughout “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and is explained in more detail in the writing “Grace Versus Merit in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” In “Grace Versus Merit in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” the author is explaining how faith is a huge part of the story of Sir Gawain. He states that the poem “is deeply imbued with Christian moral values…” (Champion 413). Champion goes on to give some examples of how the writer of the poem “‘was thoroughly familiar with the trends of religious concepts’”

The tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—a well-known, late 14th century Middle English romance—embodies significant themes. These themes are successfully fulfilled by the influential characters in the story. One of these characters, Sir Gawain—the protagonist of the story and one of King Arthur’s knights—proves to be the hero of the story. Although he humbly denies it, Gawain has a repute of being a distinguished knight and loyal subject. In the story, Gawain is portrayed as possessing the acme of all knightly characteristics, yet, still has several attributes to master.

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the author’s rhetorical purpose is to entertain the reader by telling a story of a knight learning truth and honesty. The author uses color, alliteration, repetition, bob and wheel, and antanaclasis to keep you interested in reading the poem. The first rhetorical device is color. The author uses color to help you picture what the characters look like. The uses sentences like “Splendid that the knight errant stood in a splay of green, and green, too, was the mane of his destrier.”