Medieval Misogyny and Gawain's Outburst against Women in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"

This article challenges the view that Sir Gawain blames the wife of Bertilak for his partial failure in the quest of the Green Chapel. Such a view not only contradicts the poet's claim in the pentangle passage that Gawain's 'clannes and [...] cortaysye croked were neuer' (l. 653) but fails to take account of the social niceties of Gawain's leave-taking from the man who has been at once his host and his judge, the husband of the young wife and, as it will turn out, the agent of the old and honoured lady, Morgan le Fay.