SOURCE: Putter, Ad. “The Temptation Scenes.” In “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and French Arthurian Romance, pp. 100-48. Oxford University Press: Oxford, England, 1995.

In the following essay, Putter analyzes how the Gawain-poet's temptation scenes differ from those found in his probable sources.

Introduction

The romance of Perlesvaus, or Le Haut Livre du Graal, was written in the first half of the thirteenth century, perhaps in England or at least by a writer with some knowledge of its geography and its recent historical events.¹ The work recounts the adventures of Perceval, Lancelot, and Gawain, who has undertaken the quest for the sword of Saint John. The relation between the Perlesvaus and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has already been a matter of considerable speculation.² Like Gawain, the prose romance contains a beheading game. After chopping off the head of a suicidal knight, Lancelot returns to the...