This edition provides the first modern collection of all eleven known Middle English Gawain tales composed or recorded in the fifteenth century or later. These romances highlight Gawain's status as the most popular hero of Arthurian legend in medieval England, producing a tradition that discards Gawain's roles of foil, rival, and even villain in Continental European romances to elevate him as the English flower of chivalry. Whether facing the supernatural in the wilderness, danger on the battlefield, or the perils of love, it is Gawain's peerless courtesy, his "perfect composure in moments of crisis," that reasserts social bonds and propriety, tames the socially or exotically monstrous, and brings the unruly under royal rule. Demonstrating that Gawain's prominence in English romance extends far beyond Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, these tales cast this familiar character in a new light and offer valuable insights into English views on the chivalric ideal.



Thomas Hahn's teaching centers on the sponsorship, production, and interpretation of texts and images from the earlier Middle Ages through the early modern period. Recent papers, publications, and seminars have concentrated on those scattered or huddled at the edges of emerging European identities, including women, Indians, Jews, heretics, Robin Hood and other outlaws, virtuous pagans, popular chivalric heroes, and other monstrous types. This work has entailed engagement with recent theory and practice in feminist criticism, visual and cultural studies, and social history. During the last decade and more he has put much energy into collaborative projects such as the Chaucer Bibliographies and the TEAMS Middle English Texts Series. He continues to work with Latin, and Old and Middle English texts.



Acknowledgments



Abbreviations



Introduction



Bibliography of Editions and Works Cited



The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle



Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle



The Avowyng of Arthur



The Awntyrs off Arthur



The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain



The Greene Knight



The Turke and Sir Gawain



The Marriage of Sir Gawain



The Carle of Carlisle



The Jeaste of Sir Gawain



King Arthur and King Cornwall



Glossary