Analyze Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the story of a young knight in the legendary court of King Arthur. The poem
begins with a narration of Camelot’s Christmas party at King Arthur’s court. During the banquet, a mysterious green knight, green
hair and green skin, riding a green horse, challenges a strange game to the gathering crowd. This game has triggered a series of
events, in which Gawain faces the test and temptation. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight belongs to a school of medieval literature,
known as “romanticism”. Romantic texts are not mainly about love, but more about adventure. Romantic texts usually involve
a hero (usually a knight) in a mission, and many risky things will happen in the process of performing the mission. This poem
experiences a long history, and the Old English used in it is quite different from modern English. This paper discusses the evolution
of English by analyzing the differences between vocabulary, grammar and modern English.