Gawain and the Nick of Time: Fame, History, and the Untimely in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain is haunted by a fame he has not earned, causing the character ‘Gawain’ to be temporally distant (and distinct) from the great fame of the Arthurian knight, Gawain. The heterogeneous temporality of Gawain’s fame enacts a historical fantasy that attempts to conjure away the trauma of the inevitable downfall of the Arthurian order, a future the poem seeks to banish, yet cannot seem to forget.