Perfectly Printed Paper!

Here is a mighty challenge. I ask that you prove your MLA and computer skills by printing a perfectly formatted paper. You do not need to write the paper; it's already done for you!

Papers must be printed prior to class on TUESDAY (11/8). My room will be open for printing at 6:45 on Monday. If you are tardy to class, the paper will not count. If your paper does not pass, then you will have one week to make changes.

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Instructions:

1) copy and paste SPECIAL (just text) into Word
2) set up a cover page using your name, date, class, and the paper's title
3) center title at the top of the 1st page, hit return and indent the first
4) insert page number with your last name as a header, but do not include the cover page
5) format the essay (double space, Times New Roman 12pt, indent new paragraphs, title of books italicized)
6) format the works cited page

NOTE: the essay should fit on two pages, not including cover and works cited page
-watch paragraph indents
-keep all text Times New Roman 12 pt. font, even the header!
-double space, but no extra space between paragraphs (set to zero for spacing between paragraphs before and after)
-use the paperclip in Word, the help box, or even find a youtube video!
-remember, Gawain can refer to the poem or the character. Notice!
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Evaluating the Medieval in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  

In an era known for chivalry and heraldry, the romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight weaves an engaging story. It starts with a Christmas feast for King Arthur’s knights, but an uninvited guest interrupts their revels. What follows is dark comedy as the Green Knight’s decapitation leads to the first recorded soccer match. This is entertainment, circa 1375.   

As a romance from the 14th century, the poem displays literary devices common to the medieval era. The Gawain poet created his verse with attention to alliterative patterns, and employed stanzas of unfixed length that are connected through the bob and wheel device. Thematically, the poet places Gawain in situations that test his devotion to the medieval ideals of courtly love and chivalry.   

Ironically, the “secular” text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is preserved in a religious manuscript that also contains three poems: “Pearl,” “Patience,” and “Purity” (Borroff 20). Yet, Gawain opens with a passage more accustomed to the nationalist ethos of epic poetry. The poet offers an account of Britain’s founding, connecting the heroes at Troy with the “Bold boys bred there, in broils delighting,” that inhabit England (line 21). As in Beowulf, alliteration punctuates the poetic line. Where the device once served as a rhythmic and mnemonic tool, the sound repetition in Gawain belongs to a revival of alliterative verse in the medieval period. The medieval audience would have recognized this poetic element as it suggested a popular Anglo-Saxon form of storytelling. Thus, the poet insists for the reader to “listen to my lay but a little while,/ As I heard it in hall, I shall hasten to tell/ anew” (line 30-32). Alluding to elements of Old English oral poetry, the Gawain poet attracts the interest of his medieval readers.   

However, the form of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight breaks from the Anglo-Saxon pattern in its stanza construction. Visually, the poem lacks caesura line breaks that divided the line after two stressed syllables. In its place, the Gawain poet employs a bob and wheel at the end of each stanza. The bob is a two-syllable line that sets a rhyme scheme in the four-line wheel. Most often, the bob and wheel offers a conclusion to a stanza, as shown in lines 485-490: "Such happiness wholly had they that day/in hold./Now take care, Sir Gawain/That your courage wax not cold/When you must turn again/To your enterprise foretold." Here the bob presents “hold” as the initial sound to be rhymed in the wheel; the poet forms the wheel around this sound in an ABABA arrangement. Before expanding the narrative by offering further description or changing scenes, the Gawain poet uses the bob and wheel to alter the physical line length.  

In plotting, the poem exemplifies the paradoxical romantic virtues of courtly love. Sir Gawain is tested to deny his faith and break his word at Lord Bertilak de Hautdesert’s home. The host and Gawain agree to swap their daily earnings: the lord from hunting in the woods, Sir Gawain from interactions with the lord’s beautiful wife. As a guest, Gawain must obey the wishes of his host and hostess- a situation made difficult by the lady’s bold suggestions. Resembling the game animals Bertilak hunts, Gawain nervously evades the lady’s requests. To preserve the marriage vows, their love is never consummated; still, Gawain obeys the lady’s demands and his own desires by sharing furtive kisses. The competing responsibility required by chivalry and courtly love makes Gawain’s temptation emblematic of a medieval romance.  

The Gawain poet makes skillful use of the romance conventions, writing the poem with attention to medieval aesthetics. Modern readers might not share Bertilak’s claim that Gawain is “polished as a pearl,” or worthy to wear the pentangle star after his blatant deception and failure to trust Mary against the Green Knight (line 2393).  Yet, our perceptions are not shared by 14th century readers of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The romance remains a fitting example of medieval literature in its poetic construction and thematic development.

Works Cited
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Mary Borroff. The Norton Anthology of English     Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. 7th edition. Volume 1. New York: Norton, 2000.