Saturday, December 8, 2012

Chivalry: You're Doing It Wrong (Series, Part 8)


Part 8: Courtesy and Pragmatism



















Warning: Spoilers

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, courtesy, though highly praised, is an impediment to Sir Gawain behaving both honorably and pragmatically.  When Lady Bertilak throws herself at him in his bedroom, he has to be courteous, walking a thin line between offending his hostess and dishonoring his host. 















Lady Bertilak realizes this and uses it against him, playing on his reputation and forcing him to play along with her at the risk of losing his reputation.  This makes it very difficult for him to refuse her honorably.  It would have been better for him to have removed himself from the situation, but courtesy forbid him from doing so.  When he is offered the green girdle, at first he politely refuses, but after Lady Bertilak pretends that he has hurt her feelings, he gets second thoughts.  If he had point-blank refused her, he wouldn’t have been tempted.  In this way, courtesy, which should have been the main bolster of Gawain’s knighthood, was one of his failings.















Courtesy means more than just being polite.  It actually encompasses most aspects of chivalry.  In fact, Gerald Morgan wrote that all of the pentangle virtues can be encompassed by courtesy.  Courtesy thus provided a stark contrast between chivalry and pragmatism throughout the entire poem.  In the first beheading scene, King Arthur put thoughts of honor over thoughts of his life, and thus forced Sir Gawain to do the same.  It also goes against common ethical sense that none of King Arthur’s court seems to find anything wrong with beheading someone; indeed, they find it both honorable and entertaining. 



Surely something was amiss with courtesy in the middle ages.  In Hautdesert, Sir Gawain was once again forced to choose between honor and personal safety, and while the Green Knight chides him for choosing his life, it is never really clear why or whether honor should be valued above pragmatism.  Even the Green Knight cannot truly blame Sir Gawain for loving his life too much.  Thus, though courtesy is a valuable trait, when the poem measures it against pragmatism, it is found wanting.


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