Summary Of The Southern Chivalry

    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a tale that takes place in the medieval period. During this time period, knights were considered very common and were expected to follow one main code of law, chivalry. This code mainly stated that a knight must be loyal to his king, honest, modest, and brave. Chivalry is practiced in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the form of tests that are given to Gawain to reveal his true character, and what is valued most to him. Throughout these tests, Sir Gawain proves that he values his honor over his life and will not fall to temptations displayed to him.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, The Knight’s Tale, the author encapsulates chivalrous characteristics in his telling of a battle for love. In its fundamental form, chivalry idealizes a knight’s conduct, both on and off the battlefield (Gregory-Abbott). Chaucer employs this “heroic code [of] bravery, loyalty, and service to one's lord” to illustrate the idillic knight throughout the narrative (Rossignol). Chaucer’s poem, The Knight’s Tale, exhibits the ideals of chivalry in the form of two knights, desperately in love with the same woman, and a wise Duke who embodies the voice of reason. Each knight upholds honor through compassion, troths, and heroism on the battlefield, despite their afflictions with each other.

In a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court, Mark Twain sets the plot of the story in the 19th century in Connecticut. After Hank Morgan is struck by a crowbar, he wakes up 13 centuries that are in the past. In the event, a night from the court of King Arthur takes him prisoner as King Arthur orders his execution. Hank becomes the prime minister to the king by escaping execution through predicting that an eclipse will block the sun if he is executed (Lupack 162). Throughout this story, the theme of inequality is evident especially since social inequality and injustice is highlighted throughout the narrative. In one instance, Hank visits a village which is full of peasants who are dressed wretchedly. There is a clear disparity between the life in the royal court and that which is lived by peasants in the field.

A common belief is that a big part in the code of chivalry is courtly love. This is false. The documentary says the code of chivalry bound the aristocratic fighting class and protected the aristocracy families. This doesn’t have and didn’t have much to do with romance. Courtly love is more of the term to use for the code the knights followed in regards to romance. Chivalry was mostly a knights’ duties, roles, and behaviors he was to follow in order to remain honorable. It relates to the knights’ relationship with one another. Courtly love focused on how a knight treated his women. In The Knight’s Tale these two codes are at war with one another.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court tells the story of a Connecticut Yankee, Hank Morgan, being sent back in time to King Arthur’s Court, in 528. During the story, Hank learns much about himself and others. From his experiences, the novel as a whole tries to convey the idea that Hank has much to learn from the medieval time period and its people, even though it might not be transparent to him. During the story, Hank believes he is superior to those in King Arthur’s Court. He feels that his Yankee “can-do” attitude, capitalist beliefs, technological advances and democratic ideals put him a step above everyone in the medieval time. From his stubbornness to improve a society that does not really need improvement, Hank blinds himself from learning human values that would only be beneficial for himself and the Americans of his time. These positive aspects of life include hospitality, trust, unity, and loyalty. As a result of Hank’s efforts to change these people, he eventually destroys their society, further proving the point that his way of life is not the only way to live; as well as showing it is far from the best way to live.

The legends and tales of the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table have resounded for ages—vivid stories of courageous and gallant knights usurping evil while simultaneously maintaining an upstanding reputation. Through the Arthurian tales, one has the opportunity to experience heroic narratives of exemplary models of knights who clearly illustrate the chivalry and honorability one should aspire to possess. No more evidently is this theme displayed than in the 14th century epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—a narrative of Sir Gawain, nephew of the legendary King Arthur, and his heroic journey against a mysterious green knight. In this heroic journey, the inherent charisma Gawain possesses and is continually praised for affirms the

The Bostonians: Who is in Charge of the Narrative? The Bostonians begins with an intriguing tirade by which Adeline Luna preannounces the appearance of her sister, Olive Chancellor, who is one of the most enigmatic and attractive characters in Henry James’ novels and who will be the answer to question in the title. “Olive will come down in about ten minutes” says Mrs. Luna (James 3) , entering the room where Basil Ransom, the sister’s cousin from Mississippi, has waited for his hostess who wrote for him to come to Boston. “About ten,” Mrs. Luna adds to her previous statement and puts rather rambling comments to that, saying “[t]hat is exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven” (3).

Sir Gawain and Green Knight takes up the idea of an aristocratic society, strongly adhering the principles of the code of chivalry. However, throughout the story we find out that even though the people are very brave, orderly, and chivalrous like the main character, Sir Gawain they can face temptations and are put into question due to human nature to either follow these values or to go against these values. This is displayed in every part of the story.

Though the author of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK) remains unknown, the poem itself continues because of its unique attributes of the alliteration pattern and the poetic form, bob and wheel. A year after Gawain sunders the head of the Green Knight, he departs at Christmas time on a journey to find the Green Chapel, but instead stumbles upon the helping hands of a beautiful castle, which happens to be the place that additionally tries his character. In the days of the Knights of the Round Table, the codes of chivalry define these noblemen striving to be loyal to God and their lord. In Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the author uses different objects and actions to symbolize how knighthood derives its

How has social, economic, and political life in europe changed? Is the ideas of teen marriage, chivalry ,and courtly love still the same. How has these ideas changed over time? Is chivalry still alive, what is the background on these ideas.

    What are the attitudes of the young Puritan husband Goodman Brown toward women, of the author toward women, of  other characters in the story toward women? This essay intends to answer that question.

Basil too is hypnotized by Verena and her hidden powers. James contrasts the two characters, Dr. Tarrant and his daughter Verena. Olive and Basil love Verena, but they dislike her father. It seems odd that they would dislike the father of the one that they hold dear, especially with all the same characteristics that they share. They are, in essence, both practicing the same type of medicine. They are using the subconscious to achieve their goals. The only difference is that Dr. Tarrant openly practices it while Verena uses the same power with knowingly accepting it. Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall is a look at the author's own real life experiences. She just changes the name of the characters to hide their identities. The most interesting aspect of her book is the fact that she includes the lowers class women in her fight for women's rights. Very few women activists included the lower classes in their strives for equality. Fanny Fern, another American writer was way before her time in this aspect.

First performed in 1613, ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ is a timeless and tragic piece of literature which explores both the conflict of good and evil within Jacobean society and the underlying corruption which inhabited the courts and government of James I. Webster particularly uses the setting of this Machiavellian Italian court to offer a direct political and social commentary on the abuse of power within the era and the hypocrisy of the church. Heavily influenced by Webster’s skeptical and forward-thinking views on religion, ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ also explores the inequalities within society through the Duchess and the misogynistic world in which she dwells. Characterisation and symbolism plays a critical role in execution of expressing Webster’s views; focusing on the bleak idea of evil being an innate force within the world and good being something hidden.

In Graham’s Magazine, another anonymous reviewer suggested that Rochester’s character was dangerous and immoral, saying, “No woman who had ever truly loved could have mistaken so completely the Rochester type, or could have made her heroine love a man of proud, selfish, ungovernable appetites, which no sophistry can lift out of lust.” Thus, he intimated that any author who would contrive to have her heroine fall in love with such a total rake would be immoral herself and unknowing of what true love is. He went one step further to say, “We accordingly think that if the innocent young ladies of our land lay a premium on profligacy, by marrying dissolute rakes for the honor of reforming them, à la Jane Eyre, their benevolence will be of questionable utility to the world.” In this, he suggested that the depiction of Jane and Rochester’s relationship would cause young women of the time to emulate Jane’s “romantic wickedness.”

What was the middle ages in Europe like? Well, a man named Charles T. Wood wrote about it in a book called The Quest for Eternity: Manners and Morals in the Age of Chivalry. In this book, it is divided into four sections: The formation of Medieval Europe, The Age of Expansion, The Apogee and Hard Times and the Chivalric Afterglow. This book contains the living conditions of peasants, the church and the aristocrats. It also includes agricultural revolution such as the invention of the heavy plow and it looks over the fall of the Romans, the Crusades and lastly a time before the Renaissance. The following review of The Quest for Eternity: Manners and Morals in the Age of Chivalry by Charles T. Wood will include a summary of the book and a review.