SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

RUNTIME: 70 MINS

CAT: AWA132
UPC: 881482313297
RRP: $19.95

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the greatest works of English literature, acclaimed by scholars as the equal of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It has inspired children’s stories, translations in prose and poetry, plays, animations, films and an opera. Yet, despite its fame, the poem, which disappeared for centuries, was written by a poet whose name remains unknown, in an obscure dialect of Middle English.

This program sets out to investigate this unusual phenomenon, retracing the path of Sir Gawain in his fateful meeting with the Green Knight, and noting the haunted scenery through which he passes.

Grounding itself on the latest research into the poem, it attempts to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding it, which it links to the career of an impetuous English monarch, whose fall was ultimately to plunge England into a century of civil war.