{"id":3866,"date":"2015-03-30T22:23:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T22:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?page_id=3866"},"modified":"2015-03-30T22:23:58","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T22:23:58","slug":"tracy-2008-congress","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/abstracts\/tracy-2008-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracy (2008 Congress)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larissa Tracy<\/strong>
\n(Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia<\/em>)
\n“‘So he smote of hir hede by myssefortune’: \u00a0The Real Price of the Beheading Game in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/em> and Malory”<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Abstract of Paper Presented at the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, 2008)
\nSession on “Heads Will Roll: \u00a0Decapitation Motifs in Medieval Romance”<\/strong>
\nSponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/strong>
\nOrganized by Jeff Massey and Larissa Tracy
\n2009 Congress<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

[Published on our first website on 9 May 2012<\/em>]<\/p>\n

The beheading game is a popular motif in a wide variety of medieval texts from the earliest challenge in the Old Irish Bricru\u2019s Feast<\/em>, to the heady companionship of Bendigeidfran in the Mabinogian<\/em>, and the artful dislocation of the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/em>. \u00a0In most of these texts, the continued speech of the dismembered head, rather than serving as a frightening portent of impending death (except perhaps for Gawain), is a magical marker of the continuance of life and the endurance of magical belief. \u00a0However, late medieval authors like Thomas Malory strip away the levity of beheading as a game<\/em>, and focus on the silence evoked by needless killing and the failures of knighthood. \u00a0In earlier texts the beheading motif contradicts the human fallibility of knighthood, but Malory reaffirms the reality and consequences of such \u201cgames\u201d when Gawain accidentally beheads a woman pleading for her love.<\/p>\n

In the very dangerous world of the fifteenth century, human heads do not reattach, nor do they talk. \u00a0The beheading games of Bricru\u2019s Feast<\/em>, Branwen Daughter of Lir<\/em>, and SGGK<\/em> provide a striking contrast to Malory\u2019s stark episode, where Gawain, now a seasoned knight, fails to grant mercy and must wear his penance around his neck. \u00a0Unlike Gawain\u2019s encounter with the Green Knight, which serves as a training exercise for the realities of knighthood, Malory\u2019s Gawain must learn a bitter lesson beyond his own shame. \u00a0By silencing his heads, Malory voices his disillusionment with the magical elements of earlier Arthurian tradition and rejects the romanticism inherent in texts like SGGK<\/em>, in which there are no real consequences, and no one really loses their head.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Website Editor’s Note:<\/p>\n

Dr. Tracy’s Abstract for her paper at one of our Sessions at the previous year’s Congress appears here<\/a>.  We thank her for her continuing contributions to our activities.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larissa Tracy (Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia) “‘So he smote of hir hede by myssefortune’: \u00a0The Real Price of the Beheading Game in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory” Abstract of Paper Presented at the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, 2008) Session on “Heads Will Roll: \u00a0Decapitation Motifs in Medieval Romance” Sponsored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1023,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3867,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3866\/revisions\/3867"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}