Paper Topic:

Based on `Sir Gawain and the Green Knight` compare and contrast the appropriateness of each theory as a lens(a tool for examination) for this particular work: which did you find more interesting and useful, and why??

Marxist and Psychoanalytic Criticism of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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Marxist and Psychoanalytic Criticism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

On one hand , we might be hesitant to apply critical theories to ancient and medieval poems and stories . After all , critical approaches such as those used by Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx would not arise until the late Nineteenth Century . Yet , central to both Freud and Marx 's ideas is a central assertion : that their ideas are not pertinent in a certain time period , but rather universal principles of

human behavior and motivation . Thus , a poem like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , thought to have been written around the Fourteenth Century , should provide excellent material by which to apply these more modern theories and think about their universality . And in fact , both Freud and Marx do appear in Gawain , if we think about Marx 's class consciousness and Freud 's sexual repression with regard to the poem

Marx 's criticisms appear in the opening section of Gawain

Their reckless jokes rang about that rich hall

till they turned from the table to the tournament field

and jousted like gentlemen with lances and laughs

then trooped to court in a carolling crowd

For the feast lasted a full fifteen days

of meals and merriment (as much as could fit (Anonymous

The poem depicts the bourgeois ( having ' class ) at ease in their castle , and the story reflects their fears to have their party broken up by horror , especially...

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