Volume 49, Number 15 · October 10, 2002
In Bed with Gawain
By W.S. Merwin
The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight had existed in one form or another for many years, perhaps for centuries, in Arthurian tales and romances, some of which have long been lost to us, before the poet, whoever he or she may have been, put it into its present form and the words that have come down to our time. We cannot even be certain of when that was, but it appears to have been during the latter half of the fourteenth century, a hundred years or more before Columbus's fateful voyage. The poem must have been written some years or decades before it was copied in a fine, precise, somewhat ornate hand—one accustomed to writing manuscripts, and so perhaps the script of a cleric, someone resident in a monastery or at least trained by priests.
Feature, 5614 words
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