SOURCE: Benson, Larry D. “Literary Convention and Characterization in Sir Gawain.” In Art and Tradition in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” pp. 56-109. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1965.

In the following essay, Benson explores the influence of common literary conventions from the romance tradition on setting, action, and characterizations in the Gawain-poet's works.

The Gawain-poet's debt to romance tradition is most clearly and significantly evident not in his dependence on specific sources such as Caradoc but in his use of the general stock of literary conventions that were the common property of all romancers. We have already considered some of them in our discussion of the temptation episode, but their influence is not restricted to that part of the narrative; the poet drew on them for much of his settings, his actions, and, most important, his characterizations. Critics of Sir Gawain have seldom paid...