ONE OF DAVID F. Johnson's many contributions to the study of Middle Dutch Arthuriana is an argument about the diverse reasons why Walewein should be considered as operating in a class of his own in the Roman van Walewein. Johnson's reading is characteristically astute, but his thesis about Walewein's individuality presents an opportunity to examine once again the manipulation of genre and convention evident in another Arthurian masterpiece focusing upon Arthur's nephew: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [hereafter SGGK]. In this most carefully crafted of medieval English romances, genre and convention are also closely tied to issues of heroism. Indeed, the Gawain-poet's manipulation of generic features includes a persistent emphasis on the isolation of his hero; this isolation is unusual given the generic telos of reconciliation so commonplace in the romance kind. Part of what happens, in consequence, is that Gawain is and is not a traditional romance hero; accordingly, SGGK is a generic hybrid. The question of how best to define romance has produced considerable scholarly debate, but love, whether of a heterosexual or homosexual partner, or of family, or of one's chivalric fellows, is a recurring and, indeed, defining feature of the genre; Gawain thus undertakes adventure for the love of Arthur. Unusually, though, Gawain is careful to avoid the kind of amorous or loving dalliance that is another staple form of adventure in the romance genre. Gawain is in fact continuously isolated throughout the poem, and this isolation suggests that he is also, in part, an unusual epic-heroic hero, one interested not only in the winning of that all-important heroic trait of public fame but also in abiding by a powerful code of honour. As so often in the heroic ethos, it is this code of honour and heroism – including, in this case, keeping Lady Bertilak's secret – that gets the hero Gawain into trouble. These issues of the hero's isolation, generic trouble, and honour are important for reassessing Gawain's supposed failure.

Erwin Cook makes a convincing case for the ancient Greek hero being both active and passive, a figure who is willing and capable of taking physical action and rendering appropriate harm to opponents, but who is equally likely to suffer harm him- or her-self.