Comparing Beowulf In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:The Importance of Literary Genre and Time Difference"They said that of all the kings upon earth / he was the man most gracious and fair-minded, / kindest to his people and keenest to win fame," (Beowulf 97 ln. 3180-82). This is a description of the great king Beowulf, from the epic poem of the same name. "…Sir Gawain you are, / Whom all the world worships, whereso you ride; / Your honor, your courtesy are higest acclaimed / By lords and by ladies, by all living men," (Sir Gawain 139 ln. 1226-29). This is a description of Sir Gawain, from the romantic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Both of these heroes are obviously very highly viewed by those around them, although almost 600 years separates
The key to any epic is its hero and his flaw; the hero is required to have a flaw because the epic is a form of serious and tragic poetry that allows for few lighthearted moments. This particular epic centers around a young and eager adventurer named, of course, Beowulf, who is fueled by a desire to be remembered forever as a great hero. His calling comes when "…a fiend out of hell, / began to work his evil in the world. / Grendel was the name of this grim demon / haunting the marshes, marauding round the heath / and the desolate fens;" (Beowulf 33 ln. 100-04). Grendel also brings in the first otherworldly element of the poem, a characteristic specific to epics; this element is expanded upon when Beowulf tells of many sea monsters he destroyed in his youth, later when Grendel 's mother seeks revenge, and finally when the great dragon threatens Beowulf 's kingdom. The purpose for extremely long epics such as Beowulf (which is over 3000 lines, and likely longer due to destroyed sections of the original manuscript) lies in tradition and preservation. It is thought that the actual Beowulf lived around 450 A.D., but the epic was not recorded until approximately 700 A.D. - during this long gap, tales of Beowulf were passed down orally, a tradition of the Anglo-Saxons based upon the preservation of their unique culture. This culture was a serious one because the times of the
In the time of Beowulf Paganism was still commonly present. In the time of Sir Gawain Christianity was the widely accepted religion. Religion in general is much more present in Sir Gawain, as the entire plot of the book revolves around Christian holidays and celebrations. Christianity affects even the attire of characters in the story. Sir Gawain 's shield shows that "he fittingly had / On the inner part of his shield [Mary 's] image portrayed, / That when his look on it lighted, he never lost heart," (Sir Gawain 128 ln 648-50). The downfall Gawain suffers also has to do with his religion, as he puts faith in a magic baldric instead of in God, and in doing so is belittled and shamed by the Green Knight. In Beowulf, there is mention of God, but merely in passing - it is obvious that religion is not as important to the Anglo-Saxons of 700 A.D. as is the comitatus. This goes back to the harshness of the time and the fact that all the faith the thanes had, they put in one