Popular Gawain, 1955-70, from Maureen Duffy to Pentangle

This paper will survey the substantial influence not so much of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight itself, whatever that might be, but rather of the Gawain imagined by the Leavisite critic John Speirs, which sees the poem as a celebration of pagan vegetation rites, on a surprisingly rich variety of post-war media: a play and a teaching edition from South Africa, a novel by King’s alum Maureen Duffy set in the London of the Big Freeze of 1962–63, a London folk band (Pentangle), and a second dramatization aimed at children, which, remarkably, included a staging of a ‘sword dance’. This Gawain has its roots in Cecil Sharp’s gathering of folk dances and songs, and remains central to modern ecocritical scholarship today (which, though, seems to think it’s all new).

Lawrence Warner is Professor of English at King’s College London: he has recently completed a monograph on and a new edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.