Sir Gawain Vs. Knight

Time for Round 2! In one corner, we have Sir Gawain, knight of the Round Table, one of Arthur's favourite knights, and in the other corner, we have the Knight from Chaucer's frame story Canterbury Tales, one of the only brave and noble characters, and the highest ranking person in the entire book. Lets start it off by saying that they are both knights, good and honourable (well, mostly, Gawain DID have a certain thing for other lords' wives) and both followed the chivalric code. Which means, that they have to be, like, super nice and stuff off the battlefield, but turn into war-crazed maniacs when fighting their enemy (multiple personality syndrome, anyone?) So lets talk about their battles. Sir Gawain faced off with the Green Knight (Ooooo scary...) a mystical, immortal knight, who doesn't even die when Gawain chops off his head. So Gawain fufills his end of their bargain when he goes to meet the Green Knight a year after their "duel", doesn't have the guts to accept his fate ( his head being chopped off in return), has an affair with a married women, takes a magic girdle, and well long story short, everything ends up just fine. WHAT! Their isn't even an epic battle! He ends up with a shoulder wound, a magic girdle, and his debt repaid! He should be a negotiator for the UN...And then there is the Knight. Portrayed as a 30-something guy, with a good heart, and a useless son, this dude really knows how to slaughter some people, an definite advantage. He went through the CRUSADES, people. Do you know what happened in the Crusades? Let's just say, an army of children, that's right, children went into the Crusades, and even they got slaughtered. The guys fighting in the Crusades were heartless, clearly. And the Knight made it through that, and lived to tell his tale? Guy must be one tough SOB. And there is no indication he has ever done anything unsavoury...
And the winner is......
The Knight
Do I need to explain myself?

Sir Thomas Wyatt vs. Sir John Graeme

Alright, moving on, we have Sir John Graeme versus Sir Thomas Wyatt. I know it sounds like another awesome battle between knights, but it's most definitely NOT. These guys are what I like to call the "emos" of the Lit world. Both guys are just angsting for some girl they can never, ever have. Poor, sad, mopey, little men... John Graeme loves beautiful Bonny Barbra Allen, but, alas, she will never forgive him because he slighted her while mildly intoxicated. GASP! ( Moral of the story: Try not to get drunk in front of a girl you're trying to impress, it didn't end well for Sir John here). So Johnny boy gets so upset at the fact that Barbara won;t love him that he dies of HEARTSICKNESS, yes a broken heart (really?!?). And then Barbara realizes how sad she is that she goes and dies of a broken heart too. But don't reach for your tissues just yet, it all ends well for the ill-fated lovers, they get buried together and come back as a rose and a thorn, twined together        ( 1,2.3...... AWWWWW.....) . How special. Now Sir Thomas Wyatt, he was a real person, and really in love with a women named Anne Boleyn, but she was married to the king of England (Henry VIII), and therefore totally OFF-LIMITS. So what does Sir Wyatt do to express his frustrations? Like all of the other macho men of his age, he writes beautiful sonnets to express his feelings.Thus, "Whoseso List to Hunt" was born, a poem with an elaborate metaphor that Annie is a deer, and he is the hopeless hunter trying to catch her, one who eventually just gives up, realizing that there is just no point. But there is no happy ending to this story, Anne Boleyn was beheaded by her husband, and Sir Thomas Wyatt died of illness at the ripe old age of 39.
And the Winner is...........
Sir Thomas Wyatt
This one was a tougher call, but at least Anne Boleyn and Thomas Wyatt had a legitimate excuse for not being with each other. Barabra and John Graeme could have had a happy life together!! But, no, Barbara just had to keep her pride...  Besides John seems like the biggest pansy out there... C'mon, Thomas would have totally kicked his ass.

The Passionate Shepherd vs. The Nymph

So now continuing with our theme of unrequited love, we move on to The Passionate Shepherd by Christopher Marlowe ( you know, that guy who was stabbed) and The Nymph's Reply ( you know that guy who was also killed). So basically what happens is that a shepherd, who happens to be passionate (creative title, I know), happens to be the most whipped guy on the face of the planet, and promises all kinds of stuff to this women that he loves. The woman, or nymph, in apparent true woman fashion, rejects the shepherd. (OUCH! That's gotta sting a little...) And then the poems are done. No death, no battles, no unnecessary suicides. Basically in a word: boring. But what they lack in any excitement whatsoever, they more than make up for in weird poetic types. You, see Passionate Shepherd is a pastoral poem, while the Nymph's Reply is, wait for it, anti-pastoral. But that's not what we're talking about. Who would win between them? Well, on the one hand, the shepherd but be quite charming, and he is a good, honest man. That should count for something, right? As for the nymph, I can't quite decide whether she is one of the very first feminists, or the biggest  gold digger around, I mean, she did reject the shepherd just because he didn't have any money or wealth. She claimed that it was because love was fleeting, but I think she wanted a excuse to reject his proposal. The one thing that we do not know, however, is what happened to these two people. Did the Nymph ever learn to love? Did the Shepherd ever find someone else?
And the winner is.....
The Nymph
She might not be the nicest person is the world, but at least he's not completely whipped like the Shepherd. Learn to stand up for yourself man!

Satan vs. Beowulf

 All right, this is it, the big one. The two epic heroes, fighting for the chance to continue on. Both are from the two most epic pieces of work, Beowulf and Paradise Lost, if just in length and intricate plotline. One is from the oral epic that was told during the anglo-saxon times, before William the Conqueror come over to England , and "civilized it", and the other was written by a stuffy latin master, John Milton, who was simply trying to write the best thing ever written. No big deal. Now Beowulf was the one who was trying to rid the Danes of the horrible monster, Grendel. Which, in true epic hero fashion, he did with great success, savagely ripping off his arm and hanging it to the ceiling. Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Now Satan has a much more interesting story. He tried to oust God (yes the one and only) from heaven, but him and his archangels couldn't quite get the job done, so God has to create a place for him to suffer in, called, you guessed it, HELL. And yes it did hurt when he fell from heaven, just to answer your cheesy question. So, yes it is slightly contested as to whether he was really a hero or not, but for all intents and purposes, he will be a hero. So, now that we have some background, who would win, if these two were to ever battle it out?
On the one hand, Beowulf has super-human strength (but so does Satan) but he also had good character and strong moral fibre (and Disney taught us that good always triumphs over evil), but he is the only one of his kind, and no matter how strong he is, he's ultimately alone. Satan has a whole bunch of evil minions to help him do his bidding, like Beezlebub. He also has an entire kingdom of criminals, ones who probably might help him out. However, he is kinda attached to a lake of fire though, and constantly in pain, so he might be a little weaker than he would have been pre-skirmish with God.
And the winner is....
SATAN

Yes, I realize that he is evil, not a very nice person at all. But the only person that he lost to was God, the supposedly Almighty power. My bet is that he would be able to beat anyone else who comes in his way, even tied down in Hell. Beside Beowulf is only human, and a human who doesn't believe in God (religion wasn't yet created when he was around), so where is he going to end up? Hell. Case closed.

Sonnet vs. Epic

Alright, two of the most famous and most common types of written works that young scholars such as myself are privileged enough to study, the sonnet and the epic, two very different styles of writing, and two of the most popular. Sonnets are 14 line poems which usually have a specified rhyme scheme and meter. They can be further subdivided into 2 separate categories, Petrarchan, and Shakespearan. Oh dear, I think I swallowed a textbook... Anyways, the only difference is that Petrarch used a different rhyme scheme (which conveniently gave ABBA a name), and that Petrarch was a monumental creeper ( like 300 of his sonnets were about 1 woman). Sonnets were usually about love, but sometimes they could be about dying or any other cheery events going on in your life. Epics, well, they deserve their name. They are huge poems that tell a story, but not just any story. There are massive battles, huge fight scenes-the literature equivalent of the best action movie you've ever seen. The poet even has to ask for help from a muse, for fear of the dreaded writer's block. I mean it takes commitment to write an epic, but they are really quite long, and the collective ADHD  of my generation basically means their kinda obsolete. But sonnets are short, simple and appeal to many people, for you don't really require an extensive working knowledge of every Greek and Roman god that ever lived.
Who would win?
The EPIC
I think that they're pretty evenly matched, but the epic just nudged the sonnet out of the competition, by being, well, epic. I mean you don't really hear kids going around and saying, "Whoa man! That was soooooo sonnet!" Right?

Petrarch vs. Shakespeare

Two giants of their time, the Italian revolutionist and Shakespeare, who could be the most famous man in the world (after Walt Disney) battling it out. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will I chose? Lets start with the numbers; Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 long narrative poems, while Petrarch 1 epic poem, 366 sonnets and various other works in Latin. Alright so far it's 1-all. While Shakespeare was considered the British father of poetry, Petrarch was considered the Father of Humanism, which as far as I know is like being the King of the Renaissance, so I think Petrarch wins that round. But Petrarch is hardly known today amongst the general public, but Shakespeare is quite well known. I mean who's heard of a Petrarch festival? They both helped to revolutionize the sonnet though, each developed their own method  of writing these simple, effective works of writing. Petrarch loved ABBA, he used it to help design his rhyme scheme, while Shakespeare used a simple (boring) rhyme scheme of AB AB etc... Lame. I expected better from the "Father of English poetry".  Both were used quite often after they were long gone, but those writers who wanted a challenge preferred to attempt the Petrarchan sonnet. But...
Who would win?
Petrarch
Its hard to compare these two awe-inspiring authors, but Petrarch told me to "Take a Chance on Me", that "The Winner Takes All". It's hard to reason with that logic.

Alright, moving on!

Having finished with the first pool, we plunge headfirst into something a bit more modern, that is those who lived in the previous 4 centuries. There are only 2 major "themes" this unit, Romanticism and er.. non-Romanticism. Nevertheless, here are Pool B's face-offs:
Rape of the Lock vs. A Modest Proposal
Robbie Burns ( Happy birthday!!!) vs. William Blake
Dramatic Monologue vs. Villanelle
Mariner vs. Baron
The Tyger vs. the Lamb
Duke of Ferrera vs. Ulysses
Dylan Thomas vs. Thomas Gray
George Gordon, Lord Byron vs. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Now, let the battles begin! And as always, the winners will move on to face the champs of Pool A, the losers are out of the running for 
ULTIMATE LIT CHAMPION!!!