The perfection of Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The heroes of Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are fighters. However, the traits that they have in common are much fewer than those that distinguish them. Since each is called perfect by his contemporaries, it should be possible to draw the picture of both the model warrior and the model knight by comparing Beowulf and Gawain. The first question to ask is that of leadership. In Beowulf, the hero is called "prince"*, "the Weders' helmet"** or "master-friend"***. This is not without reason: in the days of the epic might literally made right. Therefore, the one who was to be an expert warrior had to display the qualities of a leader as well as skill in combat. As for the knights, they had their designated ruler, King Arthur, and no one thought to challenge him. Neither did any of the knights distinguish themselves as generals; all their feats were accomplished alone. Now let's focus on the combat. Beowulf fights many battles throughout his life, and while some of these are only briefly mentioned (the famous sea monsters, for example), the truly titanic ones are described fully and in plenty of detail. The clash between the Geats and Grendel may serve as an example here:" Now many Beowulf earls wielded the ancestral blade,( ) The outlaw suffered mortal wounds "*And so it continues for fifty-one lines. And this is just one of the hero's armed clashes! Clearly you have to fight a lot to be a great warrior. The question is very different when it comes to knights. While Gawain's skill with sword and spear is highly praised throughout the poem, his battles are only hinted at... halfway through the paper... and he himself notes, "nothing is said of Beowulf's wife in the poem, but Bugge supposes that Beowulf has finally accepted Hygd's offer of kingdom and treasure and, as usual, has taken it in the bargain"*** - which reflects the lack of concern that a true warrior should show when dealing with women. There is, however, a characteristic common to the warrior and the knight: the two have a series of rules that they must obey. And although the rules that force Beowulf to come to Hrothgar's aid are not as well organized as Gawain's code of chivalry embodied in the "pentangle"****, the idea of ​​being forced to act in a way dictated by generally accepted rules appears in both poems. We have thus drawn images of the ideal men of two different eras, and demonstrated in the process how much the notion of perfection has changed from Beowulf to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.