Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was rediscovered only 200 years ago, and published for the first time in 1839. One of the earliest great stories of English literature, after "Beowulf", the poem narrates the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts the Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company and challenging one of their number to a wager. The virtuous Gawain accepts, and decapitates the intruder with his own axe. Gushing blood, the knight reclaims his head, orders Gawain to seek him out a year hence, and departs. Next Yuletide Gawain dutifully sets forth...His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dream-like castle, a dire challenge answered - and a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing.
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About the Author
Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire in 1963. In 1992 he was winner of one of the first Forward Prizes, and a year later was the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. He works as a freelance writer, broadcaster and playwright, and has written extensively for radio and television. Previous titles include Kid, Book of Matches, The Dead Sea Poems, CloudCuckooLand, Killing Time and The Universal Home Doctor.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
New translation; new voice,
By Sergio (Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A New Verse Translation) (Paperback)
(This review refers to the 2007 hardcover edition)
I read W.S. Merwin's (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) 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, and a side-by-side translation (my Faber and Faber edition is not) is 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.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
New best Gawain translation,
By
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This review is from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A New Verse Translation) (Paperback)
I've read a lot of translations of the poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (I regularly teach it), and I thought that nobody could outdo the standard, quite wonderful version by Marie Borroff (also published by Norton). Well, I've just finished reading Simon Armitage's amazing translation, and I was wrong. Armitage's should be the new standard version used by students and lay readers everywhere. It captures both the energetic alliteration of the original and also its wonderful toggling between formal and colloquial registers. It does a magnificent job of approximating the galloping rhythm of the long verses, but is equally stunning at managing the "bob and wheel" that brings each long verse to comically neat closure (e.g., see Armitage's description of Gawain's emblem, the pentangle -- "[he] bore that badge on both / his shawl and shield alike. / A prince who talked the truth. A notable. A knight," ll.636-39). It takes some poetic chutzpah to fiddle with the Gawain-poet in this way. But Armitage has the versifying courage and the nervy tone just right. I think the 14th-century poet, whoever he was, would admire and appreciate this new version.
That's also because Armitage shows humility as a translator too when it matters. For example, he works hard to preserve the delicate moral ambiguities of the original poem. It's difficult to translate Gawain's refusal to give the seductress, the lady of the manor (where his humility, his loyalty and his self-control are tested) a token of his affection with the perfect blend of courtesy and self-regard that is there in the original ("Hit is not your honour to haf at this tyme / A glove for a garysoun of Gawaynes giftes," ll. 1806-07), but Armitage's "it strikes me as unseemly that you should receive / nothing greater than a glove as a keepsake from Gawain" hits the mark pretty well; by placing Gawain's reference to himself in the third-person at the end of the line, he makes us wonder if the hero isn't buying in a bit too easily to the reputation that has preceded him. I'm not going to repeat the plot of the whole poem here; it's well known, easy to find online, and other amazon reviewers have gone over it. Armitage's confidence as a translator is expressed in his willingness to provide the original language of the poem on a facing page (Borroff's translation does not do this), so the reader can take a long look at the luscious original. Sure, he changes a word here or there (every translation does this), but Armitage is scrupulously true to the spirit of the original.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant translation of a favorite medieval romance!,
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This review is from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A New Verse Translation) (Paperback)
I fell in love with this romance in college. I've read a few translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in poetry and verse, and Armitage's is, hands down, the best. A former classmate from NYU called to recommend the text, reading passages aloud to me over the phone. This year I used the book with high school seniors, who loved it. Armitage employs the alliterative verse and bob and wheel characteristic of this medieval romance (the "bob" is a two-syllable word or phrase that introduces the "wheel," a quatrain that picks up its rhyme scheme from the bob). We made frequent use of the facing pages in middle English. I couldn't help rhapsodizing, repeatedly, about the beauty of the translation in my classroom. If I could give it more than five stars, I would.
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