TNTL 112

Felicity Riddy

Giving and receiving. Exchange in the Roman van Walewein and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract - Resemblances between the Roman van Walewein and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight may derive from their shared background in French romance, though conceivably the English poet knew the Flemish one. The closest resemblance between the two poems is their use of gift-exchange, a concept used in anthropology. Exchange provides both with a dynamic principle of plot-construction, which creates the optimistic tone of Walewein and a future-oriented masculine subjectivity in its hero. Dynamism, optimism and aspiration can be related to the urban-courtly milieux in which the poems were probably composed, and the poems themselves are products of cultural exchange.