Tongueless Whispering: Wirral's Role in Decentering the Human in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract:Forests feature prominently in Middle English romance and serve as uncivilized spaces that test knights on their journeys from boyhood to manhood. In this article, I examine how the forest of Wirral from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight functions as more than just a proving ground for Gawain and instead operates as an active participant in the narrative outcomes of the text. Through the application of ecocriticism and an investigation of medieval attitudes toward the natural world, I argue that Gawain and Bertilak experience two different versions of Wirral. Gawain's adversarial relationship with Wirral contrasts Bertilak's copacetic one, demonstrating how differently the forest reacts to those within its borders. By viewing Wirral as a character rather than a landscape, I expose the seriousness with which the Pearl poet meditated on both the natural world and the effect that humans have on it. Such considerations reveal how Wirral voices its opinions and desires, even if the human actors of the text do not share the same language.