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Beowulf/Sir Gawain quest comparison Both poems Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are the Anglo-Saxon epic poems. The first one is dated back as the 8 th century AD, and the second one the 14 th century. Both of them are much alike, have similar conflicts and celebrate the victory of brave heroes. However despite the similarities, they are different. The first difference is time of the actions, because time changes ideals. Different time periods and societies have different values.
The epic Beowulf is the masterpiece of the Old English literature, and like in the most legends of that time the hero Beowulf confronts the evil, which in the poem is represented by a supernatural creature, Grendel. Grendel is a monster in human shape that kills the warriors of the great Danish King Hrothgar. Beowulf is the prince of the Geats who decided to help Hrothgar and to kill the monster. Having great accomplishments in the past, Beowulf wrestles the monster barehanded and kills him. Hes honoured as a hero, but his journey is not over yet because Grendel's mother is plotting revenge to Hrothgar. And Beowulf again offers his help to destroy the monster.
After the terrible fight Beowulf kills her, thus setting free the people from the monsters. Years later, after being a king of the Geats for fifty years, Beowulf has to free his own people from the dragon. He again thinks that hell be able to destroy the monster single-handed but his strength is not as great as it was when he fought against Grendel and his mother. The dragon almost killed him, and Beowulf realises that hes dying and that it was his last battle. The poem ends with the funeral of this great warrior. Beowulf was buried alongside the treasures of the dragon he was fighting with.
Beowulf is the hero who is judged by the things he does; hes noble and must be willing to risk his life for his ideals. He must adjust his human and heroic sides of his personality. What does Beowulf want? Is he motivated to perform heroic acts simply by a need to help other people? Are fame and glory uppermost in his mind?
Or is he interested mainly in accumulating as much wealth as possible? That is the quest of his life his search for something beyond the ordinary run of existence. The main theme of his life is the conflict between good and evil. Beowulf represents the potential to do good to perform the acts selflessly and for the sake of other people. Beowulf's whole life is the contrast of the opposites: good evil, young old. At first we see Beowulf as the young, daring prince, in contrast with Hrothgar, the wise but ageing king.
In part two Beowulf, as the ageing but still heroic warrior, is contrasted with his young follower, Wiglaf. So, Beowulf is the contrast of good and evil; he is the intersection of young and old; he is the link between two traditions: the pagan and the Christian. Its not all about man against man, or man against monster. Beowulf isnt just about killing monsters and dragons but about the sound judgement and vision of the human history. Another story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins in the Camelot, the city of the King Arthur. Gawain is the knight who plays a significant role in King Arthurs court.
Hes loyal, brave and honourable. The poem follows a fairly typical quest motif. The Green Knight comes to the city and challenges anyone to a game: the person gets to chop of the Green Knight's head, and then a year later, the Green Knight gets to chop this person's head off. Sir Gawain ends up taking up the offer and is amazed and astonished when the Green Knight picks up his cut-off head and rides out of Camelot. So starts the quest of Sir Gawain he wanders around looking for the Green Knight. Sir Gawain is armed with shield, which is decked with the pentangle: a symbol of five senses, five fingers, five wounds of Christ, and on the inside of the shield is the picture of Mary, meant to bring him courage.
Eventually he comes upon a castle, and the Lord of the castle welcomes him and Gawain accepts the Lords invitation to exchange what they hunted within the day. During the next days the Lords wife is trying to seduce Sir Gawain. He only accepted the girdle from her when the lady told him that it could protect him from being killed. So what happened is that Sir Gawain was being tested by the Green Knights wife (although he didn't know that it was a test or that the lord was the Green Knight). He avoided being seduced, but gave in and accepted the girdle when he thought it would save his life. And when he gets ready to leave the castle and go to the Green Chapel, he has to once again don his armour, and this time the focus is not on his Christian shield, but on the girdle.
It is the girdle, not God, which he believes will protect him. Yes, Sir Gawain gets to the Green Chapel, and three times the Green Knight raises his blade to chop Gawain's head. After these three blows Sir Gawain becomes angry and says that it is enough. He confesses about the deal with the Lord and is forgiven. Now he returns back home. What is the goal of this journey?
The knight is posed a challenge, must set of on a quest to prove himself, and then, having done so, return home. When Gawain returns home he knows himself truly. His adventure to the Green Chapel becomes a journey of self-discovery. He struggles between the two aspects of his personality and he failed, at first, to recognise the Green Knight as a necessary ally. Gawain challenged the dark side of his personality, consisting of those qualities society deems undesirable but which are still present within a person. Sir Gawain one of the most perfect knights was discovering these aspects of his personality, and this recognition leaves him with a perpetual sense of guilt.
This guilt may also include a new-found understanding of the differences between Christian, Courtly and Personal ideals and the difficulty of balancing the three. Therefore, while Sir Gawain succeeded in his physical quest and has even accomplished the primary goal of his psychological journey, he has yet to complete his task in its entirety. Sources web
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