and has elaborated the whole setting with the richness of detail unusual in French romance. He handles the story with a moral sensitiveness not to be matched in any of the analogues. His work indeed is not mere reproduction: it is a fresh creation.
There are many passages which, in addition to being unparalleled in the existing French versions, and specially characteristic of the English poet and may almost certainly be taken as new matter introduced by him. Among these passages are: The beginning connecting the story with the legendary founding of Britain by Brutus,[1] and the ending on the same note; the two stanzas on the changing seasons at the beginning of the second division of the poem;[2] the arming of Sir Gawain, with the allegorical account of the pentangle of his shield; Gawain’s itinerary, and the description of Bercilak's castle; the descriptions of the three hunts;[3] the winter weather and landscape in the last division of the poem.
It is doubtful how much of Bercilak’s explanation of his quest as the Green Knight is due to the English poet; probably the figure of the enchantress who was responsible for the whole plot is old, but her identification with Morgan la Fay the invention of the English poet.[4]
- ↑ Cf. the beginning of St. Erkenwald.
- ↑ Though it is recognized that the beginning of the divisions of a romance with lines of lyrical tone as in these two stanzas is an imitation of French convention. The same sort of lyrical introductions is found in the romances of Kyng Alysaunder and Arthour and Merlin, and in thee mansǫnguar of Icelandi rímur.
- ↑ See note on 1133.
- ↑ Kittredge (p. 134) is of the opinion that the enchantress herself was introduced by the English poet. But where there is enchantment an enchantress is likely to be one of the earliest developments of the story. In Le Livre de Caradoc and in Diu Krone (the Middle High German romance which contains a version of the Mule sans Frain story) there is an enchanter. The old and withered enchantress is a
