An English Classic

Adaptation

A 2,530-line poem from the fourteenth century, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' is a medieval chivalric romance. The tale conforms to generic expectations with the festive games in Arthur's court, scenes of courtesy, extravagance, magic, seduction and intrigue mixed with idealisations of truth, honour, and courage. Yet this tale also carries a 'modern' theme of searching psychological and moral questions, a complex narrative about the uncertainty and ambiguities of human nature. For in-depth analysis of the poem see notes to The English Programme: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on this website.

Making Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This television programme for a twenty-first century audience attempts to illuminate the technical processes involved in making a 24-minute animation of the medieval poem. It asks key questions about whether a modern culture can re-create, re-appropriate or re-invent medievalism. Moving image is a powerful visual and educational tool, ideally suited to the illumination and explanation of process. This film offers insights, not only into the technical details involved, but also into how images and sound can be used to convey meaning.

Other Adaptations
The poem has also been adapted into an opera, a novel, a libretto and three films as well as this animation – listed below. Two of these films departed widely from the text, satisfying more modern concerns, with one focusing on a young man's trials in love and combat and the other being a sword-and-sorcery fantasia. The 4Learning animation remains the most faithful to the content of the original plot and themes of the medieval text.

FILM
Gawain and the Green Knight (1973)
Director: Stephen Weeks
Producer: Carlo Ponti
Production company: UA, Sancrest
Country: United Kingdom

Sword of the Valiant (1983)
Director: Stephen Weeks
Producers: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus
Production company: Golan-Globus
Country: United Kingdom

Gawain and the Green Knight (1991) – television film
Director: JM Phillips

PRINT
Murdoch, Iris, 'The Green Knight' (London, 1993)

OPERA
Gawain Sir Harrison Birtwistle
Libretto by David Harsent. First performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London in 1991.