San Antonio College Library

A great amount of critical commentary has been published on "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" since the poem first appeared in print in 1839. In recent years, it has become clearer that its author is dealing with profoundly important questions when he shows Gawain alone, in a baffling and inhuman world, drawn between the demands of the perfect truth to which he has pledged himself, and his own mortal imperfection. The essays in this book show the...

"An impressive and challenging survey of the five poems attributed to the poet known as the Gawain Poet, Bowers presents the principal critical issues in Gawain, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and St. Erkenwald, with special attention to the poems' relation to contemporary political and social events."--J. Stephen Russell, Hofstra University. ". . . Bowers surveys an expanded selection of the works of Chaucer's anaoymous contemporary, considering Sir...