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SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT from Four Romances from the Cycle of King Arthur reprinted in this issue of Contemporary Psychoanalysis is a fascinating tale filled with themes and symbolism well suited to consideration in our present life and has much in it that can be applied to psychoanalysis. There are issues of loyalty, authority, sex, death, fear, and relationships between people, to name a few. The search of Gawain can in itself be considered as a metaphor for the process of psychoanalysis.
In this story, after having rejected the temptations offered by the seductive wife of the Green Knight, Sir Gawain finally accepts the green girdle, "a bit of green lace" as a protective amulet1 against unknown fate. In the end he is rewarded for having refused the sexual temptations proffered by the wife of the Green Knight (at the direction of her husband), but is punished with a scratch for having accepted the lace and failing to report it. What are we to make of this? Is the author a creative artist who communicates through his writing a message of which he himself may or may not be aware, and that in some way touches the unconscious of the readers and the conscious analytic mind of the psychoanalyst? If so, what is that message? Here we are faced with varying possibilities, morals or edicts that tell us not to accede to any temptation; not to commit adultery; women are possessions of