Notes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract

ABSTRACT Regarding the assumption that, since “there is only one manuscript, after all” of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, all the textual issues are sorted: no. This article proposes new readings of, or contributes to debates concerning: the placement of the bobs; “Felix Brutus” (line 13); “to lay / Lede lif” (lines 97–98); “yow” (line 341, a recovered MS reading); “in tent” (line 624); “britried” (line 680, a recovered MS reading); “ver” (line 866); “Ful hendely” (line 895); “wayued” (line 1032); “þankked” (line 1866, a recovered MS reading); “I ʒef yow me …” (line 1964); the guide's oath (line 2122); “til” (line 2132, a recovered MS reading); and “of þe poynt of myn egge” (line 2392). Supposed “conservative” approaches to such items are in fact “radical” in that they effect major alterations to large bodies of knowledge rather than to the text of this single manuscript.