Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A New Verse Translation) [Paperback]

Simon Armitage (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 2008

"Compulsively readable. ... Simon Armitage has given us an energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version."—Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review, front-page review

Already a classic of modern translation, this fresh, vibrant work by dynamic British poet Simon Armitage updates the late fourteenth-century poem for a new generation. The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in its depiction of Arthurian landscapes, dreamlike castles, and violent winter journeys, demands a peerless storyteller, and, "like the Gawain poet [himself], Armitage is some storyteller" (The Guardian). The work is an unparalleled masterpiece of alliteration and rhyme, and "[Armitage's] version inventively recreates the original's gnarled, hypnotic music ... but also has a free-flowing, colloquial twang that allows the poem to partake of the energies of contemporary speech" (Financial Times). 2 illustrations

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Composed in medieval England by an unknown poet and set in what were (even then) the old days of King Arthur, the tale of Sir Gawain begins when a magical warrior with green skin and green hair interrupts the Christmas party at Camelot with a bizarre challenge: If a person here present, within these premises,/ is big or bold or red blooded enough/ to strike me one stroke and be struck in return in once year's time, says the knight, I shall give him as a gift this gigantic cleaver. Pure, loyal Sir Gawain accepts the agreement: the adventures that ensue include a boar hunt, a deer hunt, and an extended flirtation with a noble lady, designed to test Sir Gawain's bravery, fidelity and chastity, and to explore—with some supernatural help—the true meaning of virtue. The Gawain-poet, as he is known to scholars, wrote in Middle English (reproduced here); though it is slightly harder to read than Chaucer, the grammar is more or less our own. Armitage (The Shout), one of England's most popular poets, brings an attractive contemporary fluency to the Gawain-poet's accentual, alliterative verse: We hear the knights of Round Table chatting away charmingly, exchanging views. This is a compelling new version of a classic. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Armitage's animated translation is to be welcomed for helping to liberate Gawain from academia, as Seamus Heaney did for Beowulf. -- REVIEW

[Armitage's] Gawain is fresh and startling, as though it had been written yesterday; it is rough-knuckled and yet it sings. -- Eric Ormsby, New York Sun

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; A New Verse Translation edition (November 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393334155
• ISBN-13: 978-0393334159
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New translation; new voice, November 24, 2008

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, March 27, 2010

By 

Wanda B. Red (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

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!, February 17, 2009

By 

Evelyn Schneider (Gardiner, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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.