Bertilak Is The Green Knight

Furthermore, in reference to the Green Knight many scholars have written on the subject, and few scholars discuss the Green Knight without first discussing John Speirs’ Medieval English Poetry. as previously stated many scholars discuss Bertilak’s ambivalent personality, yet as Benson states many focus too strongly on various myths instead of how the Gawain poet has modified these myths, such as Speirs, who claims that Bertilak “is the Green man” (225, italics Speirs’). However, as Benson notes, the Green Man has been a convention of Middle English literature dating back to folk plays even before “Sir Gawain” was written, so stating that Bertilak is meant to be the true figure that has appeared in literature long before this piece seems a
the Green Man has been known as a sign of fertility and youth, which does not explain Bertilak’s fierce introduction to Arthur’s court where he makes the knights of Arthur’s court “cower in fear” (“Sir Gawain”, 315, Benson, 69). Thus, Speirs’ assertion that the Green Knight is the Green Man is similar in its flaws to the views that Bertilak is a demon or the devil; he is clearly an ambivalent character of neither complete good nor evil, so the assumption that he is demonic is just as over-reaching as Speirs’ view that Bertilak represents solely the jovial, youthful figure of the Green Man (Speirs, 225). while Martinez uses Bertilak’s and nature’s mutual connection to each other to account for the complexities of the Green Knight’s character, Benson argues that the Green Knight is molded from the combination of the Green and Wild man as medieval conventions and altered by the Gawain Poet to suit his needs for the
Benson states that the literary wild man is often connected to the harder parts of nature, such as winter which could imply that Gawain traveling through the fierce weather is a further test put to Gawain by the Green Knight (Benson, 74, “Sir Gawain” 504-510). The Gawain poet takes ample time to describe each of the seasons in turn which further suggests a strong connection between the Knight’s arrival on the Pentecost and his connection to nature: Gawain meets the Green Knight in winter, associated with wild man but arrives at Bertilak’s castle a little earlier in the winter than the first time they met (“Sir Gawain”, 60, 504). Therefore, at the castle Bertilak appears more as the jovial, youthful Green Man while he appears more like the Wild Man in his Green Knight form at the beginning and ending of the poem. The ambivalent personality of Bertilak thus strengthens his connection to Nature and his position as a steward as he is controlled by the changing seasons of nature wand in turn receives supernatural from the