Goddesses, saints and the magic pentangle in The green knight (2021)

Abstract

The medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight had its film adaptation entitled The Green Knight released in 2021 under the direction of David Lowery with Dev Patel in the role of Gawain. Both the poem and the film feature a significant number of female characters who have some contact with the supernatural and who act as guides and test mediators in Gawain’s journey. This work intends to approach how these female characters were adapted for the feature film, thinking about how the conjunction with magic and the symbolism of the pentangle were used in order to relate such characters as architects of the adventure and consequently as divine representations of pagan legends that were syncretized with the Christian religious universe. The work also focuses on references from medieval literature to adaptations for modern cinema, discussing how, given the difficulty in adapting complex characters such as Morgan le Fay and symbols such as the pentangle, the director used strategic representations so that modern audiences had a better understanding of the adventure of Arthur’s knight. The study is based on analyzes of feminism and Arthurian literature as expressed by Larissa Tracy and Geraldine Heng; of critical texts about Arthurian adaptations such as Maureen Fries, as well as authors specialized in the original poem such as J. A. Burrow and uses the most recent translation into Portuguese of the medieval poem made by Artur Avelar in 2020.