This is an innovative and original exploration of the connections between
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, one of the best-known works of medieval English literature, and the tradition of French Arthurian romance, best-known through the works of Chretien de Troyes two centuries earlier. Putter compares
Gawain
with a wide range of French Arthurian romances, exploring their recurrent structural patterns and motifs, their ethical orientation, and the social context in which they were produced. He presents a wealth of new sources and analogues, which provide illuminating points of comparison for analysis of the self-consciousness with which the
-poet handled the staple ingredients of Arthurian romance.