''The Greene Knight'' is a late medieval rhyming romance, found in the

Percy Folio The Percy Folio is a folio book of English ballads used by Thomas Percy to compile his '' Reliques of Ancient Poetry''. Although the manuscript itself was compiled in the 17th century, some of its material goes back well into the 12th century. It ...

Manuscript. The storyline effectively parallels the more famous ''

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of f ...

'' in describing the dealings of

Gawain Gawain (), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest ...

King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...

's nephew, with the Greene Knight. The text was edited by Thomas Hahn for the Camelot Project. Key differences adduced by Hahn from the longer poem include rapid pacing, more explicit character motivations, and a rhyme scheme more suitable for popular recitation. Hahn concludes "In many ways, in fact, ''The Greene Knight'', as the later poem, seems almost a summary or guide in its determined spelling out of motives and events, its domestication of the challenging and mysterious, and its explanation of marvels and ambiguities." Hahn writes, "The language of ''The Greene Knight'' suggests that it was originally composed about 1500 in the South Midlands. It is marked for two fitts (perhaps indicating performance sessions), and falls into eighty-six tail-rhyme stanzas, running aabccb."

References

*Hahn, Thomas (2000). ''The Greene Knight''. In ''Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales''.

Western Michigan University Western Michigan University (Western Michigan, Western or WMU) is a public research university in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was initially established as Western State Normal School in 1903 by Governor Aaron T. Bliss for the training of teachers ...

Medieval Institute Publications. .

External links

"The Greene Knight"
edited by Thomas Hahn. From the Camelot Project. 16th-century books Arthurian literature in English British poems {{poem-stub