“THE TURKE AND SIR GAWAIN”: IS THE TURKE AS ALIEN AS THE GREEN KNIGHT?

Yıl 2021, , 541 - 556, 24.06.2021

Ali Belenli

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.1.22

Öz

The alien figures of the romances representing the outsider or the challengers to the court
of King Arthur usually perform as foil for the knights of the Round Table. In several cases
the challengers transform into somebody else to reach a resolution in the end. The Turke
and Sir Gawain (c.1500) is a romance that represents both a foil and a transformation. The
challenger figure is represented as a more probable character with the Turke figure as he
does not look like a magical being like the Green Knight. The influence of the emerging
power of the Turks on the imagination of the Western Europe can be traced within the
romance. Still, the image of the Turk is an alien one despite the growing concerns about the
Ottoman Empire. As a result of this concern the Turke figure within the romance is
represented as a magical and cursed figure. This article discusses the alienated
representation of a real-life concern for the English people.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sir Gawain, Alienation, Romance, Middle Ages, King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table, Knights of the Round Table

Kaynakça

• Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. London: Simon&Schuster, 2010.
• Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.
• Ashton, Gail. Medieval English Romance in Context. London: Continuum, 2010.
• Bisaha, Nancy. Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, 2004.
• Charbonneau, Joanne, and Desiree Cromwell. “Gender and Identity in the Popular Romance.” A Companion to Medieval Popular Romance. Ed. Raluca L. Radulescu and Cory Rushton. Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2009. 96-110.
• Curry, Walter Clyde. The Middle English Ideal of Personal Beauty; As Found in the Metrical Romances, Chronicles, and Legends of the XIII, XIV, and XV Centuries. Baltimore: J.H.Furst, 1916.
• Fletcher, Giles. The Policy of the Turkish Empire, The First Booke. London: John Windet, 1597. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, 2011.Web. 20 February 2021.
• Hahn, Thomas. “Introduction to The Turke and Sir Gawain.” Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Ed. Thomas Hahn. Kalamazoo, MI: Published for TEAMS in Association with the U of Rochester by Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan U, 1995. 337-339.
• Jost, Jane E. “The Role of Violence in “Aventure”: “The Ballad of King Arthur and the King of Cornwall” and “The Turke and Sir Gowin”“ Arthurian Interpretations Spring 2.2 (1988): 47-57. JSTOR. Web. 10 June 2014.
• Karasulas, Anthony. Mounted Archers of the Steppes 600 BC-AD 1300. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004.
• Koch, John T., Ed. “Tír na nÓg [1] Irish background.” Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Vol 5. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2006. 1671.
• Koller, Markus. “Europe and the Ottoman Empire”. The Boundaries of Europe. Ed. Pietro Rossi. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. 157-175.
• Lewis, Bernard. The Multiple Identities of the Middle East. London: Phoenix, 1999.
• Luchitskaya, Svetlana. “Muslims in Christian Imagery of the XIIIth c.” Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean. 12 (2000): 37-67. Academia.edu. Web. 15 May 2021.
• Mastnak, Tomaž. Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, 2002.
• Rodinson, Maxime. Europe and the Mystique of Islam. Trans. Roger Veinus. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009.
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Eds, A. C. Cawley, and J.J. Anderson. London: J.M Dent&Sons, 1976.
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Eds. Carl Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. London: Macmillan, 1988. 271-316.
• Şahiner, Mustafa. “Oriental Matter Revisited: Representations of the “Turk” in Robert Greene’s Selimus.” Çankaya Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Journal of Arts and Sciences 10th ser. (2008): 135-44.
• Taşdelen, Pınar. “The Ottomans and the Turks within the Context of Medieval and Elizabethan English Poetry.” Hacettepe Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 22 (2015 Bahar): 253-276.
• The Turke and Sir Gawain, Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Ed. Thomas Hahn. Kalamazoo, MI: Published for TEAMS in Association with the U of Rochester by Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan U, 1995. 340-351.