Page:Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Tolkien and Gordon - 1925.djvu/29

Rh Though the story is taken from a French source, in style the poem is a culmination of Middle English alliterative tradition; the poet draws freely on the traditional stock of words and phrases. He does not appear to be indebted to any particular alliterative poem which is still extant. The parallels with the work of other poets are merely conventional or fortuitous. He has, however, made use of phrases and descriptive details from poems that appear to be earlier productions of his own, notably in his description of Arthur’s New Year’s Feast, which resembles closely the description of Belshazzar’s feast in Purity , and in the description of Bercilak’s castle, where he repeats phrases used in Purity to describe the ’aþel vessel’ brought into Belshazzar’s feast.

The identitity of the author of Sir Gawain is unknown. There is no good evidence for ascribing the poem to Huchown, or to Strode (whom Sir I. Gollancz suggested as its author), and a priori probability is strongly against either of them

Sir Gawain is closely related in language and