Crusades. Tennyson introduces Sir Galahad as a knight whose strength
is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure, undertaking "the
far-quest after the divine." The American poet Lowell chose Sir
Launfal, a less prominent figure in Arthurian romance, for the hero of
his version of the search for the Grail, and had him find it in every
sympathetic act along the common way of life.

The story of _Gawayne and the Green Knight_, "the jewel of English
medieval literature," tells how Sir Gawayne, Arthur's favorite, fought
with a giant called the Green Knight. The romance might almost be
called a sermon, if it did not reveal in a more interesting way a
great moral truth,--that deception weakens character and renders the
deceiver vulnerable in life's contests. In preparing for the struggle,
Sir Gawayne is guilty of one act of deceit. But for this, he would
have emerged unscathed from the battle. One wound, which leaves a
lasting scar, is the result of an apparently trivial deception. His
purity and honor in all things else save him from death. This story,
which reminds us of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, presents in a new garb
one of the oft-recurring ideals of the race, "keep troth" (truth).
Chaucer sings in the same key:--

"Hold the hye wey, and let thy gost thee lede,
And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede."

We should remember that these romances are the most characteristic
literary creations of the Middle Ages, that they embody the new spirit
of chivalry, religious faith, and romantic love in a feudal age, that
they had a story to tell, and that some of them have never lost their
influence on human ideals.