Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation [Hardcover]

W.S. Merwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2002

A splendid new translation of the classic Arthurian tale of enchantment, adventure, and romance, presented alongside the original Middle English text.

It is the height of Christmas and New Year’s revelry when an enormous knight with brilliant green clothes and skin descends upon King Arthur’s court. He presents a sinister challenge: he will endure a blow of the axe to his neck without offering any resistance, but whoever gives the blow must promise to take the same in exactly a year and a day’s time. The young Sir Gawain quickly rises to the challenge, and the poem tells of the adventures he finds—an almost irresistible seduction, shockingly brutal hunts, and terrifyingly powerful villains—as he endeavors to fulfill his promise.

Capturing the pace, impact, and richly alliterative language of the original text, W. S. Merwin has imparted a new immediacy to a spellbinding narrative, written centuries ago by a poet whose name is now unknown, lost to time. Of the Green Knight, Merwin notes in his foreword: “We seem to recognize him—his splendor, the awe that surrounds him, his menace and his grace—without being able to place him . . . We will never know who the Green Knight is except in our own response to him.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Written down at least once in 1400 but probably composed earlier (and orally), this Middle English tale is rendered line-by-line, with the original en face, by the indefatigable Merwin. This approach allows the full flavor of the poem to come through as one goes back and forth between them: "Dele to me my destin‚, and do hit out of honde" becomes "Deal me my destiny, and do it out of hand."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The first great story in English literature, Beowulf, is about fighting monsters--Grendel and his mother--and so is the next, the fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A gigantic green knight crashes Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a deathly pall over them and challenging one of the company to a duel. The virtuous Gawain accepts and, invited to put ax-blade to the thing's neck, decapitates it. Gushing blood, the knight picks up his noggin, tells Gawain to meet him in a year, and leaves. Next Yuletide, Gawain sets out. Nothing matches the horror of the opening scene, but the poem's ambiguous allegorical development, which no one has satisfactorily explicated during the 200 years since the manuscript was discovered, remains deliciously eerie. Following the example of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, Merwin's Sir Gawain replicates the propulsive alliteration and the rhymed-quatrain stanza endings of the original, and the translation appears face-to-face with the Middle English original. A major translation of a major English, and a major horror, classic. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (October 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375414762
• ISBN-13: 978-0375414763
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #836,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

W.S. Merwin is the 17th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the United States. He is the author of over fifty books of poetry, prose, and translations. He has earned every major literary prize, most recently the National Book Award for 'Migration: New and Selected Poems' and the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 'The Shadow of Sirius.' He lives in Hawaii where he raises endangered palm trees.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh, faithful, wonderful, October 31, 2002

By 

Grant Barber (scituate, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation (Hardcover)

Merwin follows up his translation of Dante's Purgatorio with this rendering of Gawain and the Green Knight. The translation appears on the right hand side, the original middle English on the left. For anyone who had to memorize the first part of Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (and kind of enjoyed it), this reproduction of the original is great. As a matter of fact, and I didn't realize this until reading the intro here, Chaucer and this author (who is also The Pearl author) were writing basically as contemporaries.

The story of Gawain and the Green Knight is a foundational one in western civilization, maybe not ranking as high up there as the quest for the grail, but still echoed and repeated in writing (see Iris Murdoch's novel The Green Knight for example).

Merwin renders the tale in wonderful language and form. While I'm not a medievalist, I have a friend who is. She stole the book out from my hands...even though I wasn't even close to done...and insisted on keeping it for a few days. She handed it back to me saying it was one of the most faithful renderings of the sense of the original she had encountered. (A plea to Mr. Merwin: please move on next to a translation of the Paradiso!).

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Injects new life into this remarkable poem, December 26, 2002

By 

J. N. Mohlman (Barrington, RI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation (Hardcover)

Since I suspect they will have similar audiences, I feel I should state right off the bat that W. S. Merwin's translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is not quite at the level of Seamus Heaney's "Beowulf". Heaney created an absolute masterpiece; the type of translation that comes along only once every few generations, and which completely redefines the view of the subject matter. The difference between the two translations lies in Heaney's ability to capture the meter and rhyme of "Beowulf" without being slavish to the original structure. Merwin has followed a similar approach in his translation, and while the language is beautiful, I didn't sense the same ancient vibrancy I got from Heaney's work.

That said, this book is more than worthy of the five-star rating that I gave it. Merwin's use of language is absolutely superb, and the resulting translation is a remarkable tapestry of images. In particular, he deftly captures the underlying tension and eroticism that forms such a key element of the story. Gawain's struggle to remain true to his code is rendered perfectly, and sets a mood of self-doubt that perfectly offsets his outward frivolity.

Since I have already mentioned "Beowulf" I might add for those unfamiliar with "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" that it is much more subtle than the former. While "Beowulf" is undeniably open to interpretation (indeed there is a wealth of fascinating scholarship surrounding it), its basic elements are much more straightforward. At its heart, as Tolkien espoused so brilliantly, "Beowulf" is a story about monsters, and what they mean in our world. On the other hand, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is more interested in exploring the ideals of chivalry and courtly love. While there is a fair bit of gore, it strikes me as being more of the hook to keep the reader engaged, rather than the core element of the story. Finally, in it's conclusion, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is far more vague than Beowulf.

Merwin has produced as a translation of the highest quality. While perhaps less "poetic" than some of its predecessors, it is written in a language that captures the full beauty and vibrancy of this remarkable poem. While a mere 84 pages in length (not including the opposing pages in Old English) this is a tale rich in metaphor that is a delight to read, and that will leave you pondering its meaning.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A smooth, fluid translation of a great medieval tale, February 22, 2004

By 

Kirk McElhearn "Freelance writer and translator" (A town in the French Alps) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation (Hardcover)

As a translator myself (currently working on a translation of Le Conte du Graal from the old French), I am in awe of Merwin's fluid rendering of this middle English tale. He uses a true vernacular style and vocabulary, giving non of the false archaism with which translations of works of this period are generally imbued. It's clear that he is a poet first, and a translator second.

But he also avoids the tack chosen by Seamus Heaney in his Beowulf; Heaney delighted in using obscure words from time to time, which does not fit with the context of such works. These tales were declaimed, read out loud, and to groups of people who were certainly not learned. What may seem obscure in the original - or what may have an obscure equivalent today - shouldn't sound as such in a translation. These tales need to be rendered in contemporary language, as they were heard in the contemporary languages of their originators.

On the down side, Merwin seems to fall into the trap of false cognates - words that, while spelled the same, have different meanings today. A few examples:

On page 27, Gawain says "And if my request is improper, I ask this great court not to blame me." The middle English word, blame, is closer to today's "censure", "criticize", or even "find fault with". Given the vernacular treatment of this translation, the reader is more likely to seize the first meanings that come to mind when reading. Blame does, indeed, hold the meaning that is used in the original, but it is far from the most common usage of the word.

Again on page 27, king Arthur say to Gawain, "Take care, cousin." The original word, cosyn, means kinsman, and was often used to denote a niece or nephew (and, indeed, Gawain, on the previous page, points out that Arthur is his uncle). So the use of cousin here is incorrect, since the relationship between the two men is not that of cousin, but clearly of uncle and nephew.

He also succumbs to the tyranny of the original word order, and the desire to leave no word untranslated. On page 27, he translates, "The blood gushed from the body," which has a "the" too many. English doesn't need an article before a non-count noun like "blood", though this article exists in the original text.

All in all, in spite of the minor translator's nits, this is a brilliant work. It reads smoothly and fluidly, and renders the energy and wonder of this tale. If only more medieval works were translated this well, readers would discover how much amazing literature there is from this period.

I'm giving it 5 stars in spite of my reservations; Merwin deserves it for achieving such clarity.