Tag Archives: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

A Woman 600 Years Ahead of Her Time

By Robin Bates | Published: February 7, 2025

If Chaucer’s created a timeless and transcendent character in the Wife of Bath, it is because he listened–really listened–to women.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beowulf, Christian misogyny, Defence of Poetry, Feminism, Geoffrey Chaucer, Harold Bloom, Percy Shelley, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

The Green Knight and Plague Fears

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2024

The message of the Green Knight: love nature, love your bodies, and love life. People who don’t are often driven by their fear of life’s transience.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Black Plague | Comments closed

Covid PTSD and the Green Knight

By Robin Bates | Published: October 14, 2024

Has Covid-caused PTSD created a MAGA death cult? I turn to “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” written in response to the Black Plague, for perspective.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Covid, death cults, MAGA, pandemics | Comments closed

The Green Knight’s Lesson: Love Life

By Robin Bates | Published: August 18, 2024

A Loren Eiseley passage on seeing his blood put me in mind of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain has a similar revelation.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "In Blackwater Woods", Barbara Kingsolver, death and dying, Loren Eiseley, Marie Borroff, Marie Popova, Mary Oliver | Comments closed

Sir Gawain and the Winter Solstice

By Robin Bates | Published: December 20, 2023

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” pits paganism’s Winter Solstice against Christmas. But reconciliation is possible.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charles Dickens, Christmas, Christmas Carol, death and dying, Winter solstice | Comments closed

Beowulf’s Lessons in How to Grieve

By Robin Bates | Published: December 7, 2023

Hamlet, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight each show us powerful ways to grieve.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Angus Fletcher, Beowulf, death and dying, grieving, Hamlet, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks | Comments closed

The Sleepy Sound of a Tea-Time Tide

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2023

We’re currently visiting Anglesey, Wales and can thus appreciate John Betjeman’s idyllic poem about the bay.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Bay in Anglesey", ancestral roots, Anglesey, Wales | Comments closed

On Proust and Living Life to the Fullest

By Robin Bates | Published: April 9, 2023

As I read Proust’s “Swann’s Way,” I imagined what it must have meant to a friend, who read it when he was dying.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Archaic Torso of Apollo", "Lying in a Hammock", death and dying, In Search of Lost Time, James Wright, Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Swann in Love | Comments closed

Reading Proust before Dying

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2023

A dying friend decided to read, in his last months, Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” As I read it, I’m beginning to understand why.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged death and dying, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust | Comments closed