why is sir Gawain and the green Knight best worth reading? Write down the story and the moral leeson that one can learn from it.
Answers
The Verse Form of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an example of alliterative verse, in which the repetition of initial consonant sounds is used to give structure to the line. The alliteration is usually, but not always, at the beginning of the word, and usually on a stressed syllable. Each stanza of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has an irregular number of lines and no fixed meter (arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables), although four stressed syllables per line is common. The alliterative lines are always unrhymed. This slightly modernized transcription of lines 285–289 highlights the use of alliteration:
If any so hardy in this house holds himself,
Be so bold in his blood, brain in his head,
That dare stiffly strike a stroke for another,
I shall give him of my gift this giserne [ax] rich.
Each stanza ends with what is called a bob-and-wheel: The bob is a short, two- or three-syllable line that introduces four short, rhymed lines (the wheel). The last word of the bob begins the rhyming pattern for the wheel, so that the bob-and-wheel rhymes ABABA. The following is a modernized example from lines 1,040–1,045:
'As I am beholden thereto, in high and in low,
By right.' (A)
The lord fast can him pain (B)
To hold longer the knight. (A)
To him answers Gawain (B)
By no way that he might. (A)