This edition of the complete Works of Cotton Nero A.x.---Patience, Purity, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight---is the first collected edition since the manuscript itself. Charles Moorman's hope is that this work will facilitate studies of the whole Gawain-Poet, in addition to those of his individual works. In addition, this edition should provide a basis for comparative study and aid in an evaluation of the poet's development.

Designed for the professional scholar, the student, and the general reader with no training in Middle English, this edition...

Beginning with a consideration of Malory's ingenious chronology, this study shows that Malory achieved thematic and structural unity by selecting from the great mass of Arthurian legend three narrative strands -- the intrigues of Lancelot and Guinevere, the Grail quest, and the feud between the houses of Lot and Pellinore -- using these to illustrate a single theme -- the rise, flowering, and downfall of an ideal civilization. This selection and use of diverse materials, Charles Moorman asserts, indicates clearly that Malory set to work with a preconceived plan and that he did achieve his...

Charles Moorman reexamines several major works of the western heroic tradition: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Nibelungenlied, the Norse sagas, and the Arthurian cycle. Disregarding the usual limited definitions which have controlled the study of heroic literature, he draws together these disparate works by proposing a theme common to them all: the opposition of two major figures whom he names king and captain.

The figure of the king arises from the community with its need for responsible government, while the captain, derived from myth, is a highly...