ABSTRACT
Sir Gawain is generally attributed to the author of The Pearl (see p. 339). Like The Pearl, it is a work of considerable finesse. The plot of the romance is derived ultimately from The Feast of Bricriu, an Irish heroic legend glorifying Cuchulainn and the magical Curoi; but the wild magic of Celtic legend has been transformed into a courtly Arthurian romance, set within the dramatic framework of the British legendary history that Geoffrey of Monmouth had created in his History of the Kings of Britain, which Lawman had already popularized for English audiences (see p. 49). As in many romances, the hero is a paragon of bravery and a master of the art of courtly love. But the author of Sir Gawain is a moralist as well as a romancer, and, as in the other writings attributed to him, he is essentially concerned with human behavior and sets greater store on his hero’s acquirement of self-knowledge than on knightly self-aggrandizement.
