Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: In a Modern English Version with a Critical Introduction

By John Gardner and Fritz Kredel

The classic tale of adventure, romance, and chivalry--now a major motion picture starring Dev Patel!

The adventures and challenges of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew and a knight at the Round Table, including his duel with the mysterious Green Knight, are among the oldest and best known of Arthurian stories. Here the distinguished author and poet John Gardner has captured the humor, elegance, and richness of the original Middle English in flowing modern verse translations of this literary masterpiece. Besides the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, this edition includes two allegorical poems, “Purity” and “Patience”; the beautiful dream allegory “Pearl”; and the miracle story “Saint Erkenwald,” all attributed to the same anonymous poet, a contemporary of Chaucer and an artist of the first rank.             “Mr. Gardner has translated into modern English and edited a text of these five poems that could hardly be improved. . . . The entire work is preceded by a very fine and complete general introduction and a critical commentary on each poem.”—Library Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Oct 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9780226283272

Book preview

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

ĀND COMMENTĀRY

1. THE POET

The fourteenth century produced two great English poets, Geoffrey Chaucer and the anonymous poet who wrote the Pearl, Purity, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and St. Erkenwald. The two poets quite obviously differ in depth and scope; whereas Chaucer’s art is matched by that of no English poet but Shakespeare, the art of the Gawain-poet, like that of George Herbert, for instance, is minor. The Gawain-poet lacks Chaucer’s moral complexity, lacks Chaucer’s fascination with men unlike himself and the psychological insight that goes with that fascination, and lacks Chaucer’s philosophical and artistic eclecticism. But granting the fundamental difference between them, that is to say the difference in poetic stature of a certain kind, one is nevertheless increasingly struck by similarities as one studies the themes, techniques, and attitudes of the Gawain-poet and Chaucer. It may be simply that they wrote from approximately the same medieval Christian vision, or it may be, as I am at times inclined to believe, that some more direct relationship exists between the poetry of the two men. At all events, one good way of introducing the Gawain-poet is to compare him more or less systematically with his greater contemporary.

We know a good deal about Chaucer considering our distance from him in time, but about the Gawain-poet we know virtually nothing. For some scholars it is not even absolutely certain that the five poems we commonly ascribe to him are all his.¹ More important, whereas we read and enjoy Chaucer’s poetry, much of the Gawain-poet’s work, despite its excellence, is still hard to appreciate as literature. One reason for this is the difficulty we have with his language—a difficulty which inhibits not only reading but also translation. We read Chaucer in the original with relative ease, for the London dialect in which he wrote evolved in time into modern English; but the Gawain-poet is accessible only to specialists, and not fully accessible even to them, for his northwest Midlands tongue, never adopted in linguistically influential cities, has remained the curious, runish language it probably was to the average Londoner of the poet’s own time. The dialect survives, drastically altered, here and there in rural England; in America, traces of it appear among backwoods or mountain people—in rural Missouri, for example, where the expression I hope can still mean I understand, I believe.

The Gawain-poet’s dialect is not all that gets in the way of our reading his poetry, for not all of the fourteenth-century poems composed in the northwest Midlands are as difficult as his. Part of our trouble is the temperament of the man. He knows and uses the technical language of hunting, hawking, cooking, chess, and the special terms of the furrier, the architect, the musician, the lawyer, the courtly lover, the priest; he knows the names of the parts of a shield, the adornments of a horse, the zones of a knight’s bejeweled helmet; he knows too the names of the parts of a ship, the parts of a coffin, the accouterments of farming; knows the Bible and its commentary (probably even commentary in Hebrew), the chronicles, old legends, the ecclesiastical traditions of London. His knowledge rivals that of Chaucer, but it is in some respects knowledge of a very different kind. Chaucer’s technical language comes mainly from books—on astrology, on alchemy, on medicine, and so forth. The Gawain-poet’s technical language seems to come less from books than from medieval occupations. One suspects that he was, like Chaucer, gregarious, but what emerges from Chaucer’s talk with people, at least in the Canterbury Tales, is less what they do than what they are, have been, and hope to become. The Gawain-poet does not seem much interested in the individualizing traits of people; he gets from them a knowledge of all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. More than a difference of temperament is involved. In his implicit theory of identity, as in everything else, Chaucer looks forward to the Renaissance. The Gawain-poet is far more a man of the Middle Ages, less influenced by the humanistic strain in classical thought, and he is therefore harder for the modern reader to approach.

Biography might help here, if we knew it. Chaucer—a Londoner, a high-ranking servant of the crown, and a fashionable poet in his day—left the marks of his existence not only in his poetry but also in civil registers, in account books of noble families, among passport records, in court documents, and in the tributes of poetical friends. The Gawain-poet seems to have left no such marks. Dunbar, writing in the next generation, lists by name all but one of the poets he admires, and the one exception is, of course, the man who wrote Sir Gawain. The Gawain-poet probably lived a good distance from London, in Yorkshire or Lancashire most likely, for his language marks him no southern man and everything in his poetry marks him a man who loved the country. He may have visited the city, may conceivably have lived there for a time, since he shows familiarity with obscure old London traditions,² but when he speaks of the city or its general environs, as he does in St. Erkenwald and in the Gawain, he speaks as though beautiful London, or the New Troy, were far away. What has greatest immediacy in his work is the country: cliffs, rivers, forests, moors, gardens, fields, barns, sleeping towns on a winter’s night, animals, birds, storms, seacoasts. Perhaps one’s strongest sense of the poet’s sensitivity to rural life comes in Purity. When God, in the form of three aristocratic strangers, comes down the road that runs past old Sir Abraham’s farm, the knight leaves the shade of the oak in his front yard and goes to meet the three. The weather is unbearably hot, and Abraham invites the strangers to rest under his tree for a while, away from the sun. He tells them he will fix them dinner, and the strangers accept and sit down on a huge surface root of the oak. (The detail is symbolic as well as literal.) Sir Abraham calls instructions to his wife, telling her to move quickly this once, and then with some servants hurries out to the cowbarn to catch a calf, which he orders skinned and broiled. When he returns to his guests, he finds them sitting in the shade where he left them, and this detail crowns all the rest—they have taken off their sweaty

Reviews for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Arthurian legendary fight with supernatural Knight.Read Samoa Nov 2003

[gbsallery · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Something of a slog. Whilst the archaic English form is in many ways delightful, it contains at least two letters which just don't come up in modern usage, which is at the very least a challenge. However, persistence is rewarded, as the story of the Green Knight is pleasantly odd and offers a real window into the early medieval mind-set. The descriptions of hunting are particularly vividly brought to life, which makes a sharp contrast to the motivations and drives of Sir Gawain - who remains utterly an enigma (if incorruptible).

[medievalgirl-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Interesting story, well executed compellingly told, excellent and sometimes beautiful use of language and good moral messages. Would give a higher rating but for the ending.

When everything is done, and Gawain completes his quest, and the moral aspects of the story are dealt with (truth, honour, keeping word, resisting temptation etc), the Green Knight reveals the identity of the Old Woman in his castle as none other than Morgana le Fey, Arthur's mortal enemy and practitioner of Black Magic- who put him up to challenging Arthur's knights.

Said Green Knight seems to have no problem Morgana living in his manor, and doing what she says, and asks dear Gawain to come in and say hello to her because she is his Aunt-- so apparently he has no problem with her association with 'the black arts' and thinks it is perfectly acceptable for a 'good Christian' to be involved with such.

The other issue was with the translation whilst generally good, the use of some overtly modern terms and phrases could be questionable.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's not at all what I was expecting. I'm not sure what I -was- expecting, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight wasn't quite as epic and noble as I was thinking. Perhaps I was envisioning too modern a version of an arthurian knight.I got really into the beginning, even reading it aloud at times because the translation is just so pretty, but then the middle lost me. When Gawain started just sitting around the castle dodging the seductive lady (who is freaky), I grew very disappointed in him.But the ending makes up for it. I was -not- expecting a twist from a classic epic poem!

[dulac3_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best of the 'classic' Arthurian tales. Gawain is presented a bit differently here from many of the other ones. Usually he's a bit of a braggart and kind of a jerk, especially to women, but here he is presented as the perfect exemplar of courtoisie. He's also a bit young and still untried, so maybe that explains it for those who want to be able to have a grand unified theory of Arthuriana.

Anyway, you probably all know the story: Arthur is about to have a New Year's feast, but according to tradition is waiting for some marvel to occur. Right on cue in trots the Green Knight on his horse, a giant of a man who proceeds to trash the reputation of the entire court and dare someone to cut off his head as long as he gets to return the favour. No one makes a move and Arthur decides he better do something about this until Gawain steps up and asks to take on this quest himself. Everyone agrees and Gawain proceeds to smite the green head from the Knight's body. Everyone is fairly pleased with the result until the Green Knight gets up, picks up his smiling head, and says: "See you next year, G. Don't forget that it's my turn then." (I paraphrase, the middle english of the poet is far superior.) Needless to say everyone is a bit nonplussed by this.

The year passes and Gawain doesn't seem to do much of anything until he finally decides it's time to get out and find this green fellow and fulfill his obligation...hopefully something will come up along the way to improve his prospects. What follows is a journey to the borders of the Otherworld as well as a detailed primer on just how one ought to act in order to follow the dictates of courtliness. Gawain ends up being the guest of Sir Bertilak, a generous knight who says that the Green Chapel, the destination of Gawain's quest, is close by and Gawain should stay with them for the duration of the holidays. We are treated to some coy (and mostly chaste) loveplay on the part of Bertilak's wife from which Gawain mostly manages to extricate himself without contravening the dictates of politeness, as well as the details of a medieval deer, boar and fox hunt with nary a point missing.

In the end Gawain goes to the chapel and finds that his erstwhile host Bertilak was in fact the Green Knight. Gawain submits himself and is left, after three swings, with only a scratch as a reward for his courteous behaviour in Bertilak's castle. Despite the apparent success of Gawain, he views the adventure as a failure since he did not come off completely unscathed and he wears a girdle he was gifted by Bertilak's wife as a mark of shame to remind himself of this. Harsh much?

The language of the Gawain poet's middle english is beautiful and I highly recommend reading it in the original with a good translation at hand to catch the nuances of meaning. The poem is replete with an almost dreamlike quality that is made real by all of the exquisite details of medieval life that are interspersed throughout the text. This is a great book to read at Christmas time.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The meter on this thing is pretty impressive: a strict alliterative pattern of two stresses, a pause, and two more stresses, with a five-line rhyming stanza (a short line followed by four with an ABAB scheme) at the end of each passage. It should be terribly constrictive, but the Gawain poet flows through it like it's nothing.

Not that I can read the original, of course, so I have to take Armitage's word for it that it's as good as his translation, which I did like. This edition has the original on the left side and the translation on the right, though, which allows you to see how close he's hewing and also lets you play the "How well could I understand this?" game. (Answer: not at all. Those people talked funny.)

The intro here has an interesting point: Anglo languages, Armitage says, stress the beginnings of words, whereas Romantic ones stress the ends. For this reason, Anglo epic poetry tends to focus on alliteration, while Romantic ones focus on rhyme. Get it? It had never occurred to me before. That's kindof cool.

This isn't a long book; I blazed through it in a single night over a couple glasses of wine while Kirsten was out getting blasted at some company event.

[cmbohn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm so glad I got a chance to read this one. It took a while, but it was totally worth it. I love this story!

[jesindaloannes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It seems strange giving a book like this a rating in stars, because it's so ancient and it's not like it's the latest Dan Brown novel or something. ;)I studied this book, and I write an essay or two on it, and I loved it mostly because of where it came from.

[janeajones · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A splendid translation of the best of the English Arthurian romances. Armitage has made this classic readable and exciting for the 21st century. SGGK is a gorgeously crafted tale full of games, laughter, human foibles, tragedy averted and humanity triumphant .

[ashleypolikoff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read the untranslated version in college, and thanks to a linguistics class and a history of the english language class, my elitist English scholar self can now cringe whenever Armitage takes liberties with the original text. However, he explains why he does so in the introduction, in order to keep the original sound of the poem and in order to preserve the meaning of the original text. In the end, I agree with his choices and I feel he has done the modern reader a great service with this translation. There were a few times he chose alliteration over meaning, resulting in a few phrases that I considered to be anachronistic. But overall, Armitage's translation is beautiful and digs up the exciting story that has been buried under elitist/scholarly translations and from heavily footnoted untranslated versions for years and years

[anthonywillard · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a longish narrative poem in Middle English, here translated into modern English by the well-known British poet Simon Armitage. It recounts one of the legends of King Arthur and his nephew Gawain. It starts on New Year's Day at an elaborate banquet celebration at Arthur's court. In the first few stanzas, the company is invaded by a green giant who rides his green horse right into the banqueting hall, and demands a trial of fortitude with any one of the knights. Gawain volunteers, and the giant directs him to take one swing with the giant's axe at the giant's neck, unresisted. Gawain complies and chops off the giant's head. The giant picks up his head, gets back on his horse, and bids Gawain to show up at the giant's place, The Green Chapel, in one year to the day to suffer the giant's return blow. Then off he goes. The rest of the story tells of Gawain's search for The Green Chapel and his adventures when he gets there.The narrative approach throughout is light-hearted and lyrical. Suspense is maintained by a series of delays, but without any of the tiresome digressions that plague medieval romance. The poet excels in describing the scenes of nature and daily life (of the aristocracy) that surround the main action. The scenes of hunting particularly impressed me with their realism and detail. The poem takes a slightly humorous, ironic view of the conventions of courtly romance. The author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a contemporary of Chaucer, is thought also to be the author of three other poems, The Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness. He or she is often referred to as The Gawain Poet or The Pearl Poet. The poem is written in stanzas of varying lengths consisting of unrhymed lines of alliterative verse terminated by a five-line section of short rhymed lines. It has a nice sort of swing to it, both in the original and in Armitage's translation, which duplicates the original stanza form. I read mostly the translation (the original is on facing pages) since I am not very good at Middle English, and this is particularly hard, being a northwest midlands dialect with a vocabulary quite different from Chaucer's London dialect. But I could read enough to sense the musicality that Armitage preserves. I infer from reviews that Armitage's translation is more informal than the well-known translation by J. R. R. Tolkien. I haven't read that one but will try to do so soon. Recommended to fans of Arthurian legends, descriptive poetry, and good yarns.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Let me tell you, then, a tale of adventure,A most striking one among the marvels of ArthurWhich some will consider a wonder to hear.If you listen closely to my words a little whileI'll tell it to you now as I heard it toldin town;A bold story, well proven,And everywhere well known,The letters all interwoven,As custom sets it down.During a New Year's feast at Arthur's court, Sir Gawain takes up a challenge issued by a strange green-skinned knight, and must find his way to the Green Chapel a year later to meet the mysterious knight again. On the way he stays at a castle for Christmas, whose lord and lady, while very hospitable, seem to be playing games with him. There were detailed descriptions of later fourteenth century armour, hospitality, hunting and also the traditional way of butchering deer and boar at the end of the hunt, which was fascinating. This poem about a quest by one of King Arthur's nephews, was written by an unknown poet in the late fourteenth century, in the dialect of the Cheshire/Staffordshire border. The Oxford World's Classics version contains an interesting introduction and useful notes alongside a verse translation by Keith Harrison. He has used an alliterative style to echo the pattern of the original Middle English poem, which was meant to be spoken aloud rather than read.

[trilliams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wouldn't trust anyone wearing all green in the first place.

[philsyphe · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read this in 2011 for one of my university modules.I found it interesting to read something as old as this but didn't find it especially entertaining. I only read this because I had to!

[mmwiseheart · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The changing of the seasons, the clothing of the characters, and the bloody battles and hunt scenes are all described with such vivid detail. I love the expression of the struggle that Gawain faces between chivalry and what he knows to be right.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

 I adore this. I have to admit to cheating slightly, in that it was in translation and not in the original middle English, but I think that's allowed.



Poetry of this vintage is very different to that we're used to - there's nothing even resembling the usual iambic pentameter, and the end of the lines don't even begin to rhyme. Instead the rhythm comes from the alliteration of the stressed sylables within a line. It seems to lend itself to being read aloud - maybe an indication of the transition from an aural to a written tradition.



The poem itself is a tale of king Arthur's court, with a challenge being issued by a stranger at the Christmas court, and the bulk of story being played out at the following year's end. It has everything - chivalrous knights, the splendour of court, lovely ladies, but it also has dark overtones - there's sex, blood and gore of the hunt (both beast and man). There's also the threat of nature to the ordered life of the court and to an individual against it. It's not very long, no more than 115 pages, but it has so much packed into it that it goes by in a flash.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The poemThe only known manuscript of the poem known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight comes, oddly enough, from Sir Robert Cotton's collection, the same source as the Beowulf MS. But the Gawain MS was filed there under the bust of the emperor Nero, rather than Vitellius...We know next to nothing about the poet - there are three other poems in the same MS that look to be stylistically linked and are assumed to be by the same poet ("The Pearl", "Purity", and "Patience"), and a separate poem, "St Erkenwald", that has also been suggested to be by the Gawain poet, although Davis doesn't find the evidence for this convincing. In form, it's a classic Arthurian romance, taking up two themes that appear in several other texts of the period - the beheading contest, and the (attempted) seduction of the knight by his host's wife. What's unusual about it, though, is that the two themes are rather tightly linked, and that the story sticks closely to what all this is doing to Gawain's state of mind, and doesn't ramble off into other embedded narratives as medieval texts tend to do. Very little happens in the poem that isn't obviously relevant to the main storyline in some way (apart from a few little things that look relevant, but the poet appears to have forgotten to come back to). So it feels like a very modern story, in many ways. Gawain is a man who has an appointment with almost certain death coming up in a few days (as a result of a foolish bet that he can't honourably back out of), and he finds himself the guest of a generous and affable stranger who breezily goes off hunting saying "look after my wife whilst I'm out". Gawain is perhaps a little more surprised than we are when the wife turns up in the guest-room in her nightie as soon as the coast is clear, and the handsome young knight has a hard time defending his virtue... The language of the poem - as well as the places referred to in it - places it in the north-west of England, probably somewhere around Cheshire or North Staffordshire. The poet obviously knows his French romances, but the language feels solid and earthy, even when you compare it to Chaucer. There were a surprising number of words that I recognised as (cousins to-) dialect words still in use in the north-west when I was growing up - bonke (bank) for a hill, for example. And it was a surprise to discover that "bird", the coarse word for a girl we were brought up not to use, has its entirely respectable roots in Middle English burde, which originally meant "someone who does embroidery", i.e. a young lady. And much else of the same kind.Because the language is quite close to Old English and doesn't have much French or Latin in it to guide us, there are a few places where it's hard to make sense of it on a first read-through, but there are plenty of other parts where you get a good idea of what's going on even if you don't recognise absolutely all the words. And the Davis edition comes with a comprehensive word-list and good, clear notes, so it didn't take me long to get to grips with even the most obscure parts. Simon Armitage's translationFor those who are primarily interested in the story, and want something that reads naturally, the Armitage translation is a good bet. It's written with a clear sense of the "northernness" of the poem (even though he's from the "wrong" side of the Pennines...), and Armitage is even happier to include modern dialect expressions than Heaney was in his Beowulf, even when it means leaving the literal sense of the original behind (e.g. in l.2002, where he is so gleeful about rediscovering "nithering" that he drops the slightly puzzling but memorable image "to harass the naked" in the original. But his is a great line, and definitely in the spirit of the original (I'm not going to quibble about nithering being a Yorkshire word, so technically out of place here...). But occasionally he seems to get the tone slightly wrong, making it just a bit too modern-informal, e.g. "He leaps from where he lies at a heck of a lick" (l.1309) which was "..he ryches hym to rise and rapes hym sone" (he decides to get up and hastens himself at once). Sometimes the drive to alliterate seems to be a bit too much.But on the whole it's a very lively, consistent translation, giving the progress of the story priority over the shape of the words and drawing the reader on with the energy that a text like this needs. Now I've read the original I wonder whether this is a text that really needs translating, but if you want a translation to read in isolation, this is the one to go for. It's not much use as a literal crib for the Middle English, though.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've always liked the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but I never enjoyed reading it before. I first encountered this tale in a survey course of British Literature early in my college career (first semester--Beowulf to Sheridan; second semester--Blake to the Present Day...I still have the texts), in which we were exhorted to remember that the knight's name was pronounced GOWan. With apologies to the late Mr. Graham (who I believe preferred the 18th century to the 14th), I'm all in favor of Armitage's approach---let the rhythm and the alliterative requirements of the text dictate which consonant or syllable gets the stress. This version is so read-out-loudable that I feel it banishes any objection that might be raised to liberties Armitage took with literalness. (I'm not much of a purist that way when it comes to translating poetry anyway. I mean...it needs to remain poetic, above all.) I later had some exposure to the medieval language of the poem in a more advanced course; I may even have been expected to claw some of it into modern English myself, an effort best lost to time. This edition places the ancient version side-by-side with the new translation. It's interesting to compare, and to try to remember the sounds of the good old Anglo-Saxon, a clankier language by far. I counted four different spellings of our valiant knight's name in that text--Gawan, Gawayne, Gawen and Gauan. Surely that isn't just sloppiness or inconsistency, but suggestive of varying pronunciation in the original? In any case, if you're inclined to visit this classic tale, I commend you to Armitage's translation. It's just plain fun.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like this translation because the introduction is long enough to get me started, but not so long that it feels like work to read. And there is a great appendix that explains the poetical form, which I really enjoyed learning about and that helped me to appreciate the poem more. The poem itself is surprisingly vivid. The images are rich and the story is detailed and even brutal at times. I also liked the moral message - even the "best" of us had better beware of pride!

[pepys_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Some passages of this book were unexpectedly droll. It might come fromSimon Armitage's translation, which makes use of many words and expressions which I didn't know, and which are marked as familiar in my dictionary. It doesn't bother me too much that he uses these terms, because they do not sound familiar to my French ear anyway. But native English speakers will maybe find it somewhat jarring.A few examples gathered haphazardly (with the line number):'He leaps from where he lies at a heck of a lick,' (1309)heck and at a lick are referred by dictionaries as familiar or informal. My Harrap's Unabridged translates at a tremendous lick as à fond la caisse, à fond de train, which is indeed familiar.'so that many grew timid and retreated a tad.' (1463)a tad is again familiar or informal. As un peu wouldn't sound informal in French, a tad is translated by un chouïa, un tantinet. The 1st expression comes from North Africa and is indeed very familiar (I wouldn't write it in a French translation of Sir Gawain!), the second, though familiar too, is very old-fashioned and could suit a text on chivalry.'If someone were so snooty as to snub your advance,' (1496)snooty is again informal.There are many more similar examples—much more than one in each page. At least, they allowed me to increase my familiar and informal vocabulary. Let alone the jointing scenes, whose vocabulary is however much harder to place in conversation. But Simon Armitage's choices of informal terms perhaps makes the tale more entertaining finally. It might be the reason why I was surprised by this book and eventually liked it.

[morgannakerrie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An epic poem about Sir Gawain from Arthur's court.

[thinkneil · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I remember reading a summary of this story in middle or high school, but it is nice to sit down with a classic and let it tell its tale. This is a very good story and its age only makes it more endearing. A simpler story from a different time.

[benjaminhahn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This Folio Society Edition is very nice with huge thick pages and some lovely illustrations. It is Simon Armitage’s translation but it does not have the dual language format, just the new verse. The story is good, at least for being centuries and centuries old. There are some misogynistic themes in the end unfortunately, but the overall message of cowardice and valor was rewarding in my opinion. I do not know much about old English translation, but I enjoyed the work that Mr. Armitage did with the alliterations. I'm sure it must have been difficult to compose while staying to true to the meter and meaning of the original. I was also interested in this story's contribution to the Arthurthian myth. Armitage's translation posits Uther as Arthur's father and Morgan as his mother but also as the wife of the Green Knight. There are strong Christian words used to describe the green chapel where the Green Knight abides: Satan, evil, ect. But once the ruse is up, Morgan's witchcraft seems tolerable and almost necessary as Gawain's test. I wonder if this tolerance is so apparent in the original text. If so, how indicative of the times when it was written. Was “magic”, despite its non Christian origins, tolerable or maybe even just something to be reckoned with?This was book was pleasure to hold, admire, and read aloud. It might become one of those Christmas books that gets read every year to the family.

[bobobones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed how this book was a poem, it was in verse but when you read it you don't get caught up in the rhyme and rhythm. When i was reading this book, because its told in third- person form, and i imagined the author was some sort of philosopher because there are times where there are parts that sound like something you would find in a quote book, and it is very descriptive and well worded. though in the middle of the book, it was a little hard for me to follow what was going on. The only way I understood what I was reading was when I read out loud. This story itself is great though. It has good moral values, but it has (just a little bit) goriness.

[osbaldistone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read W.S. Merwin's 2002 verse translation of this medieval poem, and so thoroughly enjoyed his rendering that I flagged it to read again. However, I heard good things about Armitage's translation, so bought it to add to my library. Figuring I'd read it someday, I flipped to the first page of the translation to see what it was like, and was immediately pulled into the narrative by the now familiar setup combined with Armitage's rich and accessible style. Being at work, I had to put it down, but I was reading it at home that night after everyone else was in bed.The story is marvelous (in more ways than one), but a side-by-side translation would be preferred. Armitage strikes a gentle balance between contemporary, accessible verse and keeping the otherworldly feel of the original. I say 'otherworldly' in reference to how far removed we are from the time and culture in which the original was written. Armitage emulates the beat (and off-beats) of the original. He also uses alliteration much as in the original, and this added layer contributes much to the power of the text.This story of chivalry, loyalty, fear, faith, doubt, and duty has a lot to say to our world. As with the Bible, a new and faithful translation can open up previously un-seen or unappreciated windows onto the landscape of a story. Armitage has added a new voice to an ancient tale, and I highly recommend it.Os.

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would have loved this if for no other reason than that Armitage, in the Introduction, offers support for pronouncing Gawain's name with the stress on the second syllable (pg 15), which is the pronunciation I grew up with but which seems uncommon. If there is scholarly difference of opinion, then I'm not wrong when I slip up and call him Gawain. Anyway, Armitage's translation has much more going for it than an introduction which favors my pronunciation! It zips along, with modern diction and a translation which is more poetic than literal. A few times I felt like his word choices were a bit too silly but, looking at the original text on the facing page, it always appeared (to my very inexpert eye) that his choices were well supported (the Gawain poet was not above silliness!). It's been a long time since I last read Sir Gawain, and I'd forgotten what a great poem it is – beautiful, funny, and moving. I plan to read Marie Borroff's translation next to compare, but Armitage's looser translation is really marvelous!

[heidip_38 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Isn't this just the creepiest cover? Anyway, I've read this for the thriller category for the Back to the Classics Challenge. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table enjoy a Christmas celebration. But, along comes a huge green knight who goads them into accepting a challenge. In order to protect King Arthur, Sir Gawain agrees to the challenge. He must make one blow with his sword against the Green Knight today, then in one year Sir Gawain must come and find the Green Knight and receive one blow from him. Well, Sir Gawain chops his head off in one blow, but the Green Knight picks up his head and laughingly gallops off. You'll have to read it to see what happens.

[dylkit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very readable version of the poem. Armitage retains the verve of the original story as well as the beat,alliteration and bob-and wheel sections (two syllable lines followed by a quatrain) of the original poetry.

'And they danced and they sang til the sun went down
that day
But mind your mood, Gawain,
keep blacker thoughts at bay,
or lose this lethal game
you've promised you will play.'

The poem was fastened to the page in the late 14thc, in the "alliteration revival" style : it was a style of verse that keeps to an Anglo-Saxon literary style and was almost certainly orally transmitted before. The use of repetition and alliteration are characteristic of the oral tradition: think about how fabulous the rhythm of lines like these sound spoken aloud

'Then they riled the creature with their rowdy ruckus
and suddenly he breaks the barrier of beaters -
the biggest of wild boars has bolted from his cover'

I love that Simon Armitage has let the poem breathe and remain a living thing rather than a dry academic exercise. The loss of a star is due to the fact that occasionally there is a choice of a word that jars, that sounds a bit too modern, chosen for the sake of the alliteration but can feel a bit shoe- horned in. I also prefer a side by side translation, but that is being a bit nit picky as the original is readily available .

[g026r · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While perhaps not the most accurate translation, it remains one of the more readable by the general reader, and maintains a sense of vitality and flow throughout. My main complaint would be a few too modern, or too slang-y phrasing choices of the sort that feel forced and dated a mere handful of years later.

[poetontheone · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This relatively short medieval poem is written in lyrical verse with interesting structure that is quite readable. A take on Arthurian legend that is often light-hearted, but there is some blood. The main plot device is a beheading, after all. Not to mention Sir Gawain's temptation by the Lady of the castle in which he takes in lodging over the Christmas holiday. Juicy.