Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is often described as being part of the alliterative revival, which was an emergence of poetry in the 14th century in the alliterative meter of Old English verse. The term, though, is somewhat misleading. Alliterative verse continued throughout the Middle English period. It was not so much revived as it was continued in the poems of the Gawain poet and others. This structure give a rhythmic coherence to the work.
Romances are an important part of medieval literature and often involve magic and the supernatural.
We can also say that the story is an Interlace , which is a type of narrative that involves a lot of loose ends in which many themes and adventures are interwoven without a controlling sense of unity. This aesthetic contrasts with that of Aristotelian unity. Students, of course, recognize Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as part of Arthurian literature. The legends of King Arthur probably have some basis in history. The story was developed by the Norman writer Wace, who added the legend of the round table in his long poetic work, Roman de Brut.