My father’s tales of soldiers’ sexual experience in World War II remind me of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”
The summer solstice and Shakespeare’s famous play appear sentimental to us today. They were not always so.
Posted in Byatt (A.S.), Chaucer (Geoffrey), Kipling (Rudyard), Shakespeare (William), Sir Gawain Poet | Also tagged A. S. Byatt, Children's Book, fairies, Geoffrey Chaucer, Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck, Puck of Pook's Hill, Rudyard Kipling, summer solstice, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare |
Comparing the Japanese film “Departures” with “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” give special insight into the meaning of Christmas.
On Saturday I wrote about how Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the 14th century Arthurian romance, demonstrates that our fear of death keeps us from living as fully as we could. The Green Knight’s promise to us is that, if we change the way we approach death, we will live life with heightened intensity [...]
Sports Saturday Today’s post is on the sport of hunting (I’ll get to the Super Bowl next week). I should warn you that some of the passages you will encounter will be graphic. They are taken from the 14th century romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I am teaching at the moment. As [...]
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I am about to start teaching, we learn that Gawain has a shield bearing a pentangle or five-pointed star. The star is the symbol of a balanced life, and we can continue to use it today. The Middle Ages loved numerology, and the poem details the significance [...]
Ten members of the Scott Bates clan have gathered in my parents’ Tennessee house, and two more, along with two beagles (Kipling and Beckett), are on their way. While the Christmas festivities have for the most part been joyous, we have had one moment of friction. Luckily, literature came to our aid. I keep the [...]
One of the most interesting essays I received in my just completed early British Literature survey came from a young Marine. Jon Gott was fascinated by what he calls Camelot’s “band of brothers.” His essay was about how Gawain handles the tests that he is subjected to in the 14th century romance Sir Gawain and [...]
Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday because it involves holding a feast in the face of on-coming winter. I read this as a sign that we believe the harvest bounty can carry us through the hard times. To accentuate the symbolism, I like my Thanksgivings to be cold and even a bit wet. Sir Gawain [...]
As we do every week, Julia and I visited our friends Alan and Jackie this past Sunday evening, Julia to administer Reiki massage and I to talk. Alan was tired from his chemotherapy treatments and in pain from a cracked rib (he doesn’t know how that happened). Nevertheless we talked about literature, including Sir Gawain [...]
Armando Galarraga Sports Saturday Even as we stand on the precipice of the World Cup—tragically I will be traveling cross country today when the U.S. is playing England—something has been happening in the world of baseball that invites comment. Perfect games are breaking out all over. A pitcher pitches a perfect game if no runner [...]
On Monday I described my friend Alan as an Odysseus figure for the way he has coming back, time after time, in his battle with his cancer. He appreciated the article but was taken aback by the comparison and asked why I hadn’t compared him instead with someone like Holden Caulfield. He said he didn’t [...]
Eugene Robinson Our Commencement speaker two weeks ago was the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner and one of my favorite columnists. He delivered a message to our graduates with which I fervently agree: THINK! Robinson told us that he is tired of seeing politics conducted with bumper sticker simplicity. The real problems [...]
Dr. Faustus, Rembrandt etching Here we are in the midst of Lent with less than a month to go until Easter. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the season as follows: After Christmas there came the cold cheer of Lent, When with fish and plainer fare our flesh we reprove . . . The [...]
Snow is pounding us for the third time in two weeks and classes once again have been canceled. Significantly enough, I have been forced once again to postpone Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?” queries Keats (although he’s asking from the vantage point of autumn, not that of [...]
Just as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight supported me as I grieved for my son, so is it supporting me now as I interact with a close friend, a philosophy professor, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Alan’s tumors began in his neck and eyelid and have now migrated down to his lungs. [...]
The German philosopher Heidegger argues that, by refusing to face up to the fact that we are going to die, we human beings cut ourselves off from life as well. Essentially, by seeing death as a horrible thing, we deny that we are natural beings in a natural world. In so doing, Heidegger goes on [...]
In the weeks following my son Justin’s death, after the funeral and the memorial service and the departure of friends and relatives, I retreated into my study (it was summer vacation). I had to do something so I returned to a book I had begun writing on “how classic British literature can change your life.” [...]
Before talking about how Sir Gawain and the Green Knight came to my aid following Justin’s death, let me go through it (for those of you haven’t read it or haven’t read it recently), focusing especially on the way it handles the topic of death. The poem is in the top five of my “favorite [...]
I am devoting this week to a work that came to my aid when I was dealing with the death of my oldest son nine years ago. I will introduce you to Justin and then describe how a medieval romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, helped give me images and a framework for the [...]
