translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

heyday. Some scholars have argued that the Court of Camelot is surprised
in its very prime, in the heroic age of chivalry, in a time when innocence
was still exalted and chastity was observed, when jousting and warlike
exploits lay at the core of the knightly demeanour rather than the
sophisticated courtly ritual. The first warning as to the gradual and
perilous distancing of chivalry from its original intent, as a solidary army of
devout confrères in Christ’s service (militia Christi), is Arthur’s rather
childlike desire to either experience or be told of some extraordinary
happening, an aventure, before dinner was served. In fact, this prolonged
celebration of Christmas has something frivolous about it, as Arthur’s
whimsy is completely devoid of religious devotion, just like the pilgrims’
story-telling in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which was forbidden by the
Church and labelled as a vehicle for sin and debauchery. Presently, the
king’s desire is met as a ghastly apparition brutally interrupts the joyous
feast, and it is met in a manner that will dramatically expose the fragility of
the code his court abides by and of the ideals they all stand for. The wouldbe
harmony of Camelot is severed once the Green Knight or the Knight of
the Green Chapel, as he ceremoniously introduces himself to the
bewildered audience, rides into the banquet hall, axe in hand.
Heinrich Zimmer attempts to attribute him an identity:
Who exactly was that unearthly imperious creature, entitled to
challenge, put others to trial, unmask and sentence them? ... We may
assume without the fear of being mistaken that the giant apparition,
as green as death, from “the deserted valley of the most accursed
church”, carrying on his shoulder an ancient battle axe instead of a
contemporary knightly Christian sword, and riding a steed as
remarkable as himself, in terms of both colour and dimensions, was
none other than the Grim Reaper, Death. (Zimmer, 1994: 78-9) [our
translation]
If Zimmer is right, then the poet’s true intention exceeds the
complexity of the narrative pattern and the element of surprise, as it
focuses on a symbolic as well as initiating assessment of a public and
private morality, of Christian descent, embedded in the Round Table.
Death, borrowing the features of the superhuman instigator, is nomina Dei,
to the same extent as Life is, and God may qualify him as a deliverer of
punishment for sin, or as a grim invitation to radical change. Thus, the
Green Knight, it may be implied, has been called for by a spiritual crisis
that the knights of the Round Table unawares undergo. This crisis was
begotten by the conspicuous discrepancy between the spiritual love knights
owe to Christ and the sophistication of the courtly ritual, which tended to
replace God, the Heavenly Suzerain, with a feudal lord, and Virgin Mary
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