The Power Of Humanity

In late Middle Ages, the humanization of Christ’s image is an important sign and cause of the thought of humanity’renewal in European literary works, and the factor of humanity is also breathed into the genre of rigid medieval romance. As a masterpiece of medieval romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem of human nature characteristic of its vivid portrayal of the protagonist as a knight who values courage, loyalty, and honor, capable of showing his strength and weakness when faced with life and death.This thesis intends to explore Sir Gawain’s virtues of courage, loyalty and pursuit of honor by using Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as the text. Through close reading of this poem, and making comparisons with and contrast to other works of chivalry romance, this thesis aims to reveal Sir Gawain’s human nature of cherishing life before proceeding to expose the idea of humanity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.Besides the introduction and conclusion, there are three chapters in this thesis. The first chapter focuses on the courage of Sir Gawain who is brave enough to accept Green Knight’s challenge but coward enough to worry about the final beheading. While his bravery is a display of chivalry virtue, his cowardness is a sign of humanity that leads to his acceptance of the girdle in order to save his life. Sir Gawain feels guilty for his behavior, but he is understood and followed by members of Arthur’s Court.Chapter Two discusses the loyalty of Sir Gawain to Arthur, court ladies and Lord Bertilak. Confronting the issue of life and death, however, he breaks up the loyalty and engages himself with Lady Bertilak once more, which symbolizes human nature’s challenge to Christian principles.Chapter Three expounds Sir Gawain’s chase for honor which can be perfected by protecting his image as a knight, solving difficulties alone, and restraining his feelings for love. But his honor is destroyed when he accepts the girdle, and his hope to be a moral knight is replaced by his chase for life. This ruin of honor reflects Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’s negation to the perfect characterization and the support in the human nature of cherishing life.For a knight, courage is the basic prerequisite, loyalty the inevitable requirement, and chase for honor the orientation of efforts. By analyzing the interaction of Sir Gawain’s virtues of courage, loyalty and pursuit of honor and his humanity as is indicated in his desire for life, this thesis attempts to also reveal the logical order of thought of humanity. The coward aspect in Sir Gawain’s courage is a fact which is used to set a challenge to Christianity in his loyalty, and to make a negation to the perfect image of knights in his chase for honor. This thesis concludes that the three virtues interact, making Sir Gawain an example of humanity in a medieval court and that poem has gone beyond conventional medieval romances, foreshadowing the dawn of humanism in British literature.