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The Rules Of Courtly Love Essay

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To what extent are the rules of courtly love followed in part 3 of the poem?
Sir Gawain and the green knight is an alliterative poem from the late 14th century and is the oldest illuminated Middle English script that we have, it fortunately survived a fire in the 18th century that destroyed much of a private northern library. It was previously unknown until it was published in the 18th century due to the Victorian fascination with anything medieval. The poet is thought to be anonymous, the only other works that we have from the Gawain poet are Patience, Purity and Pearl which were first published in 1864.It is believed that they were written in the same hands as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight because all the text were accompanied by the same series of pictures. We know that the poem was passed down through the oral tradition before it was eventually written down again and again, until the editions we know would have been recorded by monks. Due to the anonymity of the poet we can only infer where he or she was from, many scholars argue that the poem reflects Cheshire dialect and concluded from this that both the poet himself and the person who wrote it were from Cheshire. From the poem it can be concluded that the poet was fairly well educated, he may have not been a professional but still had a background in theology and was well read in French books and was therefore informed about courtly behaviour. Many literary scholars have argued that the poem was written to be
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