Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Time

This passage sets Arthur (and the story) in the "age bygone" in which more wondrous events have occurred than in any other. This "bygone age" is a little like "once upon a time" - we know to expect a universe similar to ours, but one in which anything - like fairies, ogres, and giant green men - is possible.

The narrator of Sir Gawain begins his story after the fall of Troy - approximately 2000 years before the action begins. Why might he do this? Well, in order to get to Arthur, he has to go through a "history lite" version of the founding of Britain and the kings leading up to Arthur, which allows him to locate Arthur as part of a prestigious and long-lasting tradition of bravery, making him (and the stories surrounding him, like the narrator’s) seem very important, since they form a part of this tradition.

Sir Gawain opens during the Christmas season at Arthur’s court, which, in the traditional church calendar, lasted a full fifteen days. During that time, the court gathers for the length of the whole celebration.

Now the narrative becomes more specific about when we are - New Year’s day. This day will be important to the rest of the story, since it’s the day on which Gawain will need to meet the Green Knight at the Green Chapel.

"A twelvemonth and a day" is a very traditional period of waiting in fairy tales and romances. In this particular case it’s an effective strategy to make the knight in question wait this long to receive his return blow. What could be a better test of honesty than forcing a knight to meet you (on his honor) in a year and a day, after he’s had all that time to think about what’s coming (and to consider backing out)?

By setting out right after All Saints’ Day (on Nov. 2), Gawain gives himself a full two months to reach the Green Chapel. This seems like lots of time, but keep in mind that Gawain doesn’t know where he’s going.  He has to go on horseback, a much slower method than by car, plane, or train.

The poem’s description of the summer contains a lot of personification - in other words, it attributes human actions to non-human things. The weather does "battle" with winter, like a soldier, and "open fields and woodlands" dress themselves in green like someone preparing for a ball. The emphasis here is on the new life that the rain unleashes. The imagery engages four of the five senses: touch with "warm showers," hearing with its references to birdsong, smell with the suggestion of blossoming flowers and sight with the image as a whole.

The turning of the season from fall to winter is what causes Gawain to remember this quest.  In this way, his life is made to seem bound up with that of the natural world.  The seasons dictate what he must do, like they do for flowers, birds, or harvest plants

This passage is basically a reverse of the maxim "time heals all wounds." The point is that, in time, people’s moods can change. In this case, people who were merry and celebrating at the end of one year will be somber when the next one rolls around, for then, Gawain will embark on his death-march.

These lines and the ones that follow describe the seasons mostly in terms of what happens in the natural world. The season of Lent, however, is characterized by the deprivation it forces men to endure - the fasting and abstention brought on by the Church’s Lenten fasting.

Like Spring’s, Summer’s description focuses on new growth.  In this case, though, the growth probably refers to that of food crops, in anticipation of the autumn harvest. Here, the wind is the power behind the transformation rather than the rain.

Characterizing the Green Knight’s challenge as a gift for the day "when the year was newborn" means that it kind of sets the tone for the year to follow. And sure thing, we read the next section with anticipation of Gawain’s impending challenge very much on our minds.

Here again, wind is the precipitating factor for the defining events of autumn: it causes dust storms and falling leaves. Here, however, the focus is not on new growth but upon decay: "all ripens and rots that had sprung up first." This idea echoes the one with which the passage began, of time bringing change in its wake.

Many things come in threes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Here, there are three days of feasting, followed by three days in which Gawain rests in the castle while lord Bertilak hunts. Gawain also gives and receives three blows on the third day of his rest, and finally, receives three blows from the Green Knight on New Year’s Day.

Gawain has reached Bertilak’s castle on Christmas Eve. Another calendar that structures the tale, in addition to the cycles of the seasons and the Church’s feast calendar, is the cycle of sunrise and sunset and the different calls to prayer – matins, prime, nonce, evensong, etc – followed by the monastic orders.

Lord Bertilak seems to find it strange that Gawain has traveled away from Arthur’s court alone on the holidays, so entrenched is the custom of celebrating that feast at the court of one’s liege lord. But Gawain feels an increasing sense of urgency as New Year’s Day draws nearer.

The hunting scenes in Sir Gawain are bookended by a reference to the time they begin and end. The lord and his men rise and are on the path before dawn, a necessity when the winter days are so short. They are usually on their way home before sunset, although the foxhunt that follows this boar hunt is so long and difficult that they don’t start home until it’s almost dark.