Richard Lewis

Falcon (eBook, ePUB)

The Whole Story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

With the exception of Beowulf, the most famous tale in English medieval literature is probably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In its original telling, it was a tale of impossible challenge, heroic pledge, and steadfast knighthood. It took the listener/reader through Gawain's initial encounter with a mysterious knight in green, his arrival at the castle of Sir Bertilek, a near seduction, and the final, harrowing encounter. Falcon expands that original story. Drawing on Sir Thomas Mallory's great 15th century stories of King Arthur, it adds Gawain's yearlong, fearful expectation of doom and the yearlong revenge machinations of Arthur's half-sister and mortal enemy, Morgan le Fey. It is the same 14th century tale greatly enlarged in meaning; now a story of sorcery and religion, chivalry and will-to-live, self-doubt, and the loss of all. In Falcon, we see the world of Arthur's fellowship, its gatherings and banquets, the colliding melee of Camelot's annual tournament at Pentecost, and the tale telling of knights returned from quests. We see Gawain's nightlong vigil to enter the fellowship of the Round Table and his emerging uncertainty about knighthood's virtue. We see Morgan's slow manipulation of Merlin and use of ancient texts to grow in sorcery, determined to destroy Arthur and the fellowship of the Round Table. Falcon mingles details of the Arthurian Round Table world with modern ideas of self doubt and feminine self-possession, the uncertain link of religion and magic, and the questioning impact of experience. Arthur, born of rape and murder, becomes a questionable chivalric hero. Morgan nurtures an affinity with the falcons of her father's weathering yard. Gawain learns about knighthood's shortcomings and the bothersome confusion of seeing things as they are. Richard Lewis graduated from Gonzaga University and Columbia University (MA) and has his doctorate in Old and Middle English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied medieval life and literature. He lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. As an academic he has published articles in such academic journals as Medium Aevum, Language and Style, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, and Notes and Queries. That background has helped him better understand the life and stories of the period. It has also made clear to him ways in which values and behaviors of that time are often not unlike our own. He studies and now writes about that connection. Falcon presents the same main actions of the 14th century tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but surrounds them with choices, behaviors, and thoughts that are new and will be clear to any modern reader. This medieval/modern interest is also the focus of his ten-story collection of stories of medieval life and religion: Piety and People. Itinerant street healer, devotional book, monastic village law, religious anchoress, boy bishop, miracle plays and more are the contexts for exploring ideas and experience understandable to any modern reader. Alas, Piety and People still awaits a publisher. Richard Lewis is also a poet. In Falcon there are twenty-three sonnets, one for each chapter and another at the beginning. He has also published a chapbook of 27 sonnets with Finishing Line Press, How Things Are, and self-published a set of twelve of them, The Christmas Sonnets. Lewis has lived his adult life very much between the imagined world of literature and poetry and the everyday lived world of people.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: BookBaby
• Seitenzahl: 348
• Erscheinungstermin: 21. November 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9798317823436
• Artikelnr.: 75932892