Gawain: A Casebook

More than that of any other knight of the Round Table, the reputation of Gawain, King Arthur's favorite nephew, has fluctuated through the extremes of heroism and villainy. The chronicles praise him as Arthur's mightiest warrior, unsurpassed in future generations. In French romance, however, Gawain's defeats at the hands of Lancelot, Tristan, and others, steadily accumulate until challengers begin to wonder how he ever gained a reputation for prowess in the first place. He reaches his nadir in the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal and the Prose Tristan. As the Arthurian legend spread throughout Europe, French romance provided models for fresh creative endeavor. Where verse was most influential, as in Dutch and German, Gawain remains an admirable figure; but where the prose romances proved more popular, as in Spanish and Portuguese, his reputation suffers (though Italian seems to be an exception). In English, he is treated favorably for the most part outside of Malory's Morte Darthur, and he is the attractive (if imperfect) hero of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the greatest works of Arthurian literature.