ABSTRACT
The process of condensation operates on the myth of the emotional experience in the same manner as a set of chessmen stand in symbolic relation to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Morte d’ Arthur. The chastity-test of Gawain’s courtesy, in the bedroom with the Lady and its three kisses, is the prologue to the three strokes of the axe that he will receive from the Knight at the Green Chapel. Gawain, in contrast to the Lord, seems to feel a hint of desire for the Lady, “with joy welling up in his heart”, rather than the usual terms of chivalric defence. The fact remains that even at the end of the poem we never know, nor does Gawain ever know, the Lady’s innermost heart. Gawain, meanwhile, acknowledges the justice of the Green Knight’s blow of knowledge, as paternal object guarding access to the ambiguous castle-chapel with its poetic contents.
