COMMUNITY, GENDER, AND INDIVIDUAL DAVID AERS‘IN ARTHURUS DAY’ COMMUNITY, VIRTUE, AND INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY IN S7R GAWAIN AND THE GREEN ls KNIGHT ao : = a ursue such questi rx rp pr uhER, AND INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY i COMMUNITY, GEN! powers, etc.) in a time wh sharp pressures to bear on ied resistance of peasants and yy to which Margery Kempe belonged, kets in land, food, luxuries, and manufactured commo- class, together with described ‘Arthurus day including armed struggle between ma he deposition and murder of the king whose connections in whost close.’ Furthermore, later Middle Ages, which Edward M changing character of knighthood’ and gentry’ in the Hatcher assoc ned the feudal cof real meaning’? Nor is it le to assert that the poem shows an “obvious concern with commerce and economics’, such that even Sir Gawain js turned into ‘a merchant’ and ‘a commodity’.’ On the contrary fare no signs, ‘obvious’ or obscure, of the way in whieh for wel fer two centuries before the poem English military organization id depended on money: as early as Rufus and Henry I one finds were “great hirers of mercenaries’ and the fourteet ‘imitable showing as leaders of feudal contingents companies of horse and foot under defined cash ed an and not as an incidé Everywhere, in nexus between lord and vassal was assuming a monetary form. ing the lord ofa fee which was gentry were n this context the knight was verging upon property’ in a co where Life of the B faire unCOMMUNITY, GENDER, AND INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY TY AR THERES Day vices and pious ay thus sec the typic de quatee ans ou plus 1d and hawked, held great feasts and jousted, as in the ri “nto this uppe y was ass perfectly Bishop Despenser or W ws in his study of e Ages, great ec almost equ: ts, squires, and servants in ‘a offspring, upper-class. education between there was, Virgin Mary or the ‘personal page carn ly ¢ 1s Sir Gawain the setting aside w But in this poem, the séCOMMUNITY, GENDER, AND 18 provided by the ideal mo those by the e rules of courtesy this figure \ ‘ly community, its virtues, and goals, 1d through the encounter. The Green Knight comes ts great ‘los (fame) produced by the its “burnes best ar holden,/Stifest vnder stel-gere on stedes to ryde’, the ‘wystest and pe worbyest of Pe worldes kynde’, “cortaysye’ as for its heroic pra ss (brayn’) that they are] out any cause other than a ks produced in ‘Chris 8 view as pl iad ~ for example, e Battle of Maldox, Malory’s *Arthu gods, fate, or, t0 (1,752, 2,134), Simi gaunce's ambush using mercenat later Middle Ages, cannot coni worse than of heroic commu of the given social rol ns and language required by that le failure to do this is villainy, dishonour.** The code in empl jot _a matter of private judgements arrived at through inward conscience alone with God or his human surrogate, © fessor or psychiatrist. two responses are a perfectly iveness.”* Just so, the ve selects the key terms ackery at the court's si tunder serutiny (309-1 quop pe habel Penne, -s of pura ryalmes so mi Pat al be 10passage as judgements se words areMMUNITY, GENDER, A ights his way ser (687-762). He luous journey an im his wyrde ‘a courtesy book,NDER, AND INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITY rather than the ides, and it guaran- spaces which -ar on him in the publ yw-se-cuer pe dede turned/Towrast’. In this sestimate the man’s baffled ly discourses, a mastery that ith fernales, ly poses grave problems sere for ess. The col ly sustained, is to evoke an identity k es DayCOMMUNTIY DER, AND them, and here one must respect the tremors such as those shown by Gawain as ‘a community complete wi service produces a when ls apparently even to elev pious knight who represents paragon fails to classify an to categorize that failure mn Catholic dogmatics might maintain. Ifthe poet ever considered making such a j ymething we cannot stead he keeps his network of cultural practices, respond as they come under unfamiliar pressures in ch ings. It seems to me that torical change wi class which produced honourmer |, according to Mervyn James's study English Politics and the Concept of Honour, not be completed ui int and adaptable honour culture was superseded in the emergence of a ruling was significantly different from its predecessors’ (based espe mistake to think The poem's istened to by a 1 of leave of vocabulary of Christa e Green Chapel when the servant secks to open up her private sphere within the public world of “menske’ 166 there is poet cert place (2coMMUS stands absolutely total mastery over U identification w is plain both in his (bropely’) imself mney to the Chapel and the enct with the Green Knight had seemed to transcend so decisively certainly not the Green Knight’s purpose. His praise of Gawai unambiguous and immense, finding him, ‘On be fautlest eer on fote sede’, a pearl among ‘ober gay kny3tez’ (2,562-5). T Bertilak, is as immanent to the ethos 1 which, "pe Lasse I gave hi those bearing the concept of| For ‘a gret whyle’ Gawain stands silent as he takes in the stun information that what were private transactions in a private space ought domain. The Green Knight's “alyttel” matters less to him than 168COMMUNITY, 6 p. 165) and wh is poet ask the 2,384-406). And he does so as He reassures the knight of his iders Gawain as pure as if 389-94), This of G bbut it does nsisting that he himse! nsgressed since he was born ing language certainly echors before a priest at Hautd demon-lover. day’ and, the poet hopes, rdle to Sir Gawain as ‘a pure i is now expl of the adve cd, in a dialogue betw' test to be celebrated as such whe ws knyaez” (2 Gawain back to a trap-free Haut remnaunt of pis ryche fest/Ful bene’ Gaw: respond with the easy ‘larg He does thank his host for the forgiving greeting ‘to bat cortays, your cerwhelming that he cannot is habitual dispos manages a less than yeh fere” and then burst 106-28). The wounded mal decisions and unhappiness murderous respons ns and ne who was “blended” by according ‘was a powerless vietim (2418-19: 2 Kings [Samuel] 11. 1-12, 19). That such displacements are as common- 1 our own culture as in the Middle Ages suggests, once agai But this is He recol placeCOMMUNITY, GENDER, AND INDIVIDUAL IDEN. Nak eis also ves at Hautdesert ss) and runs, version 1e dangers she represents to knightly comm i aries of th poet's sporadie maki nce, however, is Gawain’s reject ig given to the j girdle by Sir Bertilak. Instead of an emblem of chivalric achieve- by ‘On pe " (2,363), Gawail (2433-6). Here Malory’s work part of the het rryde schal me pryk for prowes armies’ (2,434, 2.43 markers of the lay é farm of life is ipset this view For me For ber lory's work, just as time this poemWak RUS Day es" i is repl which leaves him the comprehen: While his persuasive reading takes seriously t show us that Gawain is group’. Margery Kempe’s book st period were engaged in si eseribed as a struggle for a ‘new ide npting to set Gawain a ne grounds for doing so are im. Instead, we might do be ic for interpretation. We can ask why he does no he processes involved in struggling to make a ‘new id sustaining one. The answer seems bound up with the poem's immanence to the courtly comi he class it represents and Gawain, as T have emphasized the culture figured by C: the struggles in whi 's brevity does, how sues his poem has introduced Is ending coul project becomes a unquestioned framework givCOMMUNITY, GENDE