Abstract: Touch, associated with the heaviest element of earth, was viewed in the Middle Ages as the coarsest and most corporeal senses, posing most danger to the welfare of Christian souls. On the other hand, virtues and sanctity, as well as benediction and miraculous healing, can also be transferred by touch. The genre of medieval romance features elaborate sensual description and dynamic exploration of the abstract qualities of physical senses. The representation of haptical perception, in particular, helps to depict the protagonists' morality, spirituality, ideas of social propriety and taboos, courtly etiquettes and amorous adventures in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This paper will focus on the representation of tactile experience in SGGK and other works by the Gawain-Poet, relating the argument to the traditional depiction of human sensorium, and to its religious and cultural connotations in medieval vernacular literature.

Key words: medieval, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, touch, romance, Middle English