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Very little is known of the anonymous author of Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, but most scholars agree on two facts: he
lived during the fourteenth century, and he lived in the area of England known
as the Northwest Midlands (present-day Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire).
The language of the poem seems to indicate his geographic origin, as it contains
many northerly features of Middle English certain words and spellings,
as well as unusual pronunciations necessary to maintain the poem's rhyme.
The one manuscript in which Gawain is found dates from the late fourteenth
century and contains three other poems very similar in style and subject matter.
A closer look at these three poems provides further
internal evidence that suggests something about the life of the author. Most
likely, he lived in a rural area which allowed him to observe and appreciate
nature. Gawain is filled with beautiful passages describing nature in all
her seasons, and a familiarity with the country is immediately evident frozen
waterfalls, storms, dewy leaves are all illustrated in a strikingly realistic
fashion. But at the same time, the author exhibits a detailed familiarity
with many aspects of medieval aristocratic life. He meticulously uses very
technical language to describe things like armor and weaponry (on both the
Green Knight and Gawain), the architecture of a castle (at the end of Fitt
II, when Gawain finds Bertilak's castle), the hunter's process of dividing
a deer's body (Fitt III), even the dialogue and sentiment of courtly love
(Fitt III, between Gawain and the lady). All these detailed, technical passages
suggest that the author of Gawain knew and encountered to some extent the
medieval aristocratic life of which he wrote.
But this rural, educated poet was evidently not famous
enough to preserve his name. Other works attributed to him include the three
poems found in the same fourteenth-century manuscript as Gawain: Pearl, Purity,
and Patience. Another poem sometimes attributed to the Gawain-poet (though
with more controversy) is St. Erkenwald. All five of these poems are similar
in their style and theme; though the stanza structure varies among the poems,
they all exhibit the same northern dialect and the same colorful use of the
Middle English alliterative tradition. But perhaps the most important unifying
factor is their religious theme, which ultimately reveals the traditional
medieval outlook of their anonymous author.
In this sense, it is best of compare the works of
the unknown Gawain-poet with that of his closest contemporary, Geoffrey Chaucer.
John Gardner considers these two the greatest English poets of the fourteenth
century, but ranks Chaucer much higher in skill and accomplishment. He writes
that "the Gawain-poet lacks Chaucer's moral complexity, lacks Chaucer's fascination
with men unlike himself and the psychological insight that goes with that
fascination, and lacks Chaucer's philosophical and artistic eclecticism" (Gardner
3). Whereas Chaucer anticipated the Renaissance with his essentially humanistic
vision, viewing the intrinsic worth of each individual, the Gawain-poet adhered
to a medieval vision of humanity. In this vision, each human was less a product
of individual, unique traits and thoughts than a member of one race, situated
between divinity and Nature and forced to contend with a universal sense of
morality to achieve salvation. Chaucer's emphasis on religion was hardly simplistic,
in fact often cynical. But for the Gawain-poet, religion and morality were
the means by which mankind tempered his Nature and came closer to approaching
God. It is this central belief, found in all his poems, that roots him squarely
in the medieval Christian tradition. Perhaps the Gawain-poet's exclusion of
a modern humanism ultimately led to his anonymity. For unlike the egoistic
humanist Chaucer, who frequently mentioned himself by name in his works, the
Gawain-poet maintained a traditionally medieval distance from his poems, never
inserting his own perspective into the narrative. Had he but done this, perhaps
we would know his identity today.
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