In what stories is Sir Gawain a main character?

Question

Is there any stories besides Sir Gawain and the green knight that focus on Gawain? I've read the Once and Future King and am about to begin Le Morte D'Arthur, however, both of these are naturally more about King Arthur, with Lancelot being the next most prominent.

Answer 1

Gawain tends to be the main character or at least a major character in the verse Arthurian romances. With few exceptions he is either the main character in the romance or a major secondary character in the romance. Often the story alternates between adventures of the main hero of the romance and adventures of Sir Gawain.

A normal motif is a battle between the main hero and Gawain, in which neither knows who the other is. The battle breaks off in friendship.

Examples of French verse romances in which Gawain is the main character: “Les Infances Gauvain”, “La Mules Sans Frein”, “Le Chevalier à l’Epée”, “La Vegeance Raguidel” (in which Yder is a secondary hero), “L’Atre Périlloux”, “Hunbaut”, “Les Merveilles de Rigomer”, and “Escanor”. English romances in which Gawain is the main character are “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, “Carle of Carlile”, “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine”, “The Jeaste of Syr Gawayne”, “The Turke and Gowin”, “The Awntyrs of Arthur at Tarn Wathling”, and “Galagros and Gawain”.

In the Gerrman romance “Diu Krône” (“The Crown”) by Heinrich von dem Türlin, Gawain achieves the quest of the Grail at the end of a long series of adventures.

Gawain also appears in almost all other early verse romances as the greatest knight in Arthur’s court. Lancelot is sometimes mentioned, and has a good reputation, but is usually rather lost among many other knights such as Yvain and Sagremor and Yder and Caradoc and Girflet and Dodinel and Gaheriet and Erec who also have a good reputation. Perceval seems more popular than Lancelot.

And the heroes of a lot of Arthurian romances are one-story wonders, who appear in the romances in which they are the star, and are seldom or never mentioned again, despite being presented as Gawain’s equal in their single story.

Gawain is the perfect knight,  his courtousy often set against Kay’s rudeness, which gets Kay knocked off his horse. A common motif is for Kay to be beaten by a knight, who then makes friends with the courteous Gawain without a battle, taken by Gawain’s courtesy. Gawain is usually the hero’s best friend, or becomes the hero’s best friend during the story.

Gawain sometimes has a reputation as a womanizer,  He has groupies in the land who sometimes have pictures of him and who have vowed to give up their virginity only to Gawain. Gawain, of course, is always ready to aid a damsel in distress.

Gawain sometimes marries at the end of a romance, but the same wife never appears again. When a story begins, Gawain is always unmarried. While other knights may be shown to marry a rich heiress and apparently retire from active knighthood, Gawain never does. And while Gawain is sometimes accused of having an adulterous relationship with a married woman, it is always a false accusation. Gawain plays the field joyfully with young maidens, unlike the later Lancelot who has an adulterous relationship, but with one woman only, at least in intention.

As Arthur’s nephew and the son of King Lot of Lothian and Orkney, Gawain might have various lordships, but he prefers the life of simple knighthood, and is sometimes explicitly shown turning down the impediments of position and encouraging others to do so.

Was there ever a single biographical story connected to Gawain? Perhaps, but if so, it is almost lost among the later adventures that have been added to it. There are accounts of how Gawain was exposed as a child and brought up in Rome by the Pope. This account is close to some legends about Pope Gregory, and the following story of how Gregory rescued his mother and unknowingly married her may be mirrored in the story found in Chrétien’s “Perceval”, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival” and Henrich’s “Diu Krône” in which Gawain rescuse his mother and grandmother (Arthur’s mother) from an enchanted castle. There is some suggestions of the incest story, but Gawain learns the truth long before he is in any danger of falling for his long-lost sister. In two of these accounts the castle is in Galloway, and there are references elsewhere to Galloway being Gawain’s rightful home, from which he was driven.

This is the glorious hero Gawain who appears as a secondary character in the “Prose Lancelot”, with all his gallant characteristics, only a little less worthy than Lancelot and Lancelot’s kinsmen Ector, and Bors. (Ector indeed is originally one of Gawain’s protiges.) However in the “Quest of the Holy Grail” Gawain represents the bad side of knighthood, perhaps the best of a bad lot, but still one of a bad lot, though we are not told in detail what is sins are. Presumably they include his light relationship with women and his willingness to battle without cause, which leads to the deaths of many knights in the Grail Quest, slain unwittingly by Sir Gawain in frivolous battles.

In the “Death of Arthur”, the death of Gawain’s  brother Gaheriet at the hands of Lancelot leads to a serious quarrel between Lancelot and  Lancelot.

In tater romances, it is almost a given that Gawain’s reputation is a sham, accepted only by the credulous. Gawain is often envious, treacherous, a murderer of good knights, and a rapist. He is breaker of promises and a liar. and not even a particular good knight in some incidents. Even Gawain’s traditionally cruel and vicious brother Agravain is shocked when Gawain beheads the good knight Palamides. Most of the knights slain by Gawain during the Grail Quest are now slain purposely by Gawain, who is often well aware of who they are. Gawain sometimes later lies and claims he didn't know. Gawain falsely declares to Perceval that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the deaths of Perceval's father, King Pellinor, and Perceval’s brother Lamorat. Percival, of course, believes him. The story explains that Gawain is acting out of fear.

The ”Prose Lancelot” is the central work of the Vulgate Arthurian cylcle, and so later prose romances are often known as Post-Vulgate Arthurian romances. They all share the evil Gawain and the story of his feud with King Pellinor and Pellinor’s sons, which is not found in the Vulgate Cycle or earlier.

Malory's Gawain is a mixture of the early Gawain and the Post-Vulgate Gawain.