A Companion to the Gawain-Poet

The essays in this volume on the so-called "Gawain"-poet offer introductions to "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", "Pearl", "Cleanness" and "Patience", providing both information and analysis.

The topics include theories of authorship, the historical and social background to the poems (with individual sections on particularly important features within them), gender roles in the poems, the manuscript itself, the meter and vocabulary and dialect of the poems, and their sources.

A section devoted to "Sir Gawain" investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the 15th to the 20th century.