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

Unknown,

Simon Armitage (Translator)

3.72 · Rating details · 54,828 ratings · 1,910 reviews

"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 K ...more

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Kindle Edition, 208 pages

Published November 17th 2008 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 1397)

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Dec 03, 2011 Tanja (Tanychy) added it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic

I didn't know where to post this so I think this is a good place!
It remains me of my Literature professor, in a good way of course! :)

...more

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Nov 22, 2008 Jason Koivu rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, fantasy

Contains the greatest "OH FUCK" moment in medieval literature!

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - listed here as written by Unknown, though I believe it may have been penned by that prolific Greek author Anonymous - is a classic tale from Arthurian legend in which the code of honor attributed to chivalry is heavily ensconced.

There are many interpretations of the poem's meaning, and historically speaking it's often dependent on the reader's bias. For instance, Christians latched on to the sex aspe ...more

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Dec 28, 2015 Vivian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2016-odyssey, holiday, yule, heroic-lit

Enchanting translation that made me love words again. The cadence and rhythm Armitage employed gave life to the modern English rather than direct translation. The Introduction laid out precisely what he would do and why he made the choice he did--to preserve the beauty of the poetry, both the alliterative Anglo-Saxon and the breakout stanzas of continental rhyming.

And I fell in love with language again. I found myself speaking aloud or mouthing them to feel the words tumbling out. For that joy, ...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: medieval-history, poetry, british-isles, 14th-century

The season if not of mellow fruitfulness than of frost and fog brings this back to me with the childhood memory of going to school in a proper pea souper, every familiar landmark lost, only the tarmac footpath remained solid beneath my childish feet, occasionally a hut would burst out of the milkiness to demonstrate that I was making progress. My little quest however did not take a year and a day, as all self respecting quests must.

Alas the language is beyond me, I am comfortable with Chaucer (t ...more

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Mar 02, 2020 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 14th-century, classics, literature, mythology, fantasy, fiction, british, poetry

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Unknown, Burton Raffel (Translator), Neil D. Isaacs (Afterword)

‎Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl‬, ‎edited with an introduction by A. C. Cawley‬, ‎London‬: ‎J.M. Dent AND Son‬, ‎1962 = 1341‬. ‎Pages: 16, 150, xxv

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings.

Written in sta Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Unknown, Burton Raffel (Translator), Neil D. Isaacs (Afterword)

‎Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl‬, ‎edited with an introduction by A. C. Cawley‬, ‎London‬: ‎J.M. Dent AND Son‬, ‎1962 = 1341‬. ‎Pages: 16, 150, xxv

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings.

Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess.

In Camelot on New Year's Day, King Arthur's court is exchanging gifts and waiting for the feasting to start when the king asks to see or hear of an exciting adventure. A gigantic figure, entirely green in appearance and riding a green horse, rides unexpectedly into the hall. He wears no armour but bears an axe in one hand and a holly bough in the other. Refusing to fight anyone there on the grounds that they are all too weak to take him on, he insists he has come for a friendly christmas game: someone is to strike him once with his axe on the condition that the Green Knight may return the blow in a year and a day. The splendid axe will belong to whoever accepts this deal.

Arthur himself is prepared to accept the challenge when it appears no other knight will dare, but Sir Gawain, youngest of Arthur's knights and his nephew, asks for the honour instead. The giant bends and bares his neck before him and Gawain neatly beheads him in one stroke. However, the Green Knight neither falls nor falters, but instead reaches out, picks up his severed head and remounts, holding up his bleeding head to Queen Guinevere while its writhing lips remind Gawain that the two must meet again at the Green Chapel. He then rides away. Gawain and Arthur admire the axe, hang it up as a trophy and encourage Guinevere to treat the whole matter lightly.

تاریخ خوانش روز چهارم ماه جولای سال 2015 میلادی

عنوان فارسی: سر گاوین و شوالیه سبز؛ نویسنده ناشناس؛ شابک 0140440925؛ تعداد صفحه (نسخه چاپی - نسخه الکترونیکی) 187؛

سر گاوین و شوالیه سبز، «سر گاوین و شوالیه سبز» در سالهای میانی سده ی چهاردهم میلادی از ماجراجویی سر گاوین، که یکی از شوالیه های میزگرد شاه آرتور بودند، میگوید؛ در داستان، سر گاوین یک چالش را از یک جنگجوی مرموز که پوست آن سبز است، را میپذیرد. یکی از افسانه های بنیادی و بسیار با ارزش است. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Dec 30, 2018 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, christmas, medieval-works, 14th-century, northern-england, 2018, epic-poems-and-novels-in-verse

Simon Armitage translation (Faber & Faber / Norton), and the Oxford edition's notes

I'd half forgotten about Gawain and the Green Knight - and I'd definitely forgotten it was set over Christmas and New Year, until I heard this mid-December episode of In Our Time. As I thought during the programme how bored I now was of Simon Armitage - he's become a very regular fixture on BBC arts shows in the last few years - I didn't expect to end up reading his translation of Gawain. But I looked at a couple ...more

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Oct 22, 2019 Ruby Granger added it · review of another edition

One thing I wasn't expecting in this was such beautifully clear descriptions of landscapes. Perspectives on the bleak winterscapes undulate, moving from terrifying cold to almost beautiful mists. It's really *Sublime*.

One of my favourite lines:
"So the year passes on through its series of yesterdays". ...more

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Nov 26, 2017 Richard Derus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Rating: 5* of five

This is the book to get your poetry-resistant friend this #Booksgiving 2017. I read it on a dare. I don't like poetry very much, it's so snooty and at the same time so pit-sniffingly self-absorbed that I'd far rather stab my hands with a fork repeatedly than be condescended to in rhyming couplets.

This tale is fabulous in every sense of the word, which is no surprise since it's survived for so many centuries. But poet and translator Simon Armitage has made the old world new agai ...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Terry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: that-northern-thing, arthurian, poetry

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 accordin 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. ...more

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Aug 12, 2012 ἀρχαῖος (arkhaîos)(RK) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

I first read this in 1975. I've read it several times since. The translation (Marie Borroff) is good. I am entirely taken in by the parallel structures in the story. Sir Gawain comes off as a wonderfully human character in a type of literature not known for well developed characters. ...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 14th-century, british-isles, medieval-history, poetry, read-in-translation

An enjoyable translation:

Yes, he dozes in a daze, dreams and mutters
like a mournful man with his mind on dark matters-
how destiny might deal him a death-blow on the day
when he grapples with the giant in the green chapel;
of how the strike of the axe must be suffered without struggle.
But sensing her presence there he surfaces from sleep,
drags himself out of his dreams to address her.
Laughing warmly she walks towards him
and finds his face with the friendliest kiss.
In a worthy style he welcomes t

An enjoyable translation:

Yes, he dozes in a daze, dreams and mutters
like a mournful man with his mind on dark matters-
how destiny might deal him a death-blow on the day
when he grapples with the giant in the green chapel;
of how the strike of the axe must be suffered without struggle.
But sensing her presence there he surfaces from sleep,
drags himself out of his dreams to address her.
Laughing warmly she walks towards him
and finds his face with the friendliest kiss.
In a worthy style he welcomes the woman
and seeing her so lovely and alluringly dressed,
every feature so faultless, her complexion so fine,
a passionate heat takes hold in his heart.
Speech tripped from their tongues and they traded smiles,
and a bond of friendship was forged there, all blissful
and bright.
They talk with tenderness
and pride, and yet their plight
is perilous unless
sweet Mary minds her knight.

William Langland's The Vision of Piers Plowman, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight all come from the end of the thirteenth century, all written in distinctly different regional styles of English. Distinct is an understatement, in purely personal terms Chaucer I can enjoy, Langland is work to read and understand while I find the language of Gawaine incomprehensible. But there are translations.

Armitage in his translation sought to achieve a distinctive Northern flavour, despite being a Southerner this wasn't something that held me away from the text and if he hadn't mentioned it in his introduction I wouldn't have noticed or thought of this as requiring a particular effort or intention on his part. On reflection not paying homage to the Northern origin in the word choice seems a distinctly odd idea.

The poem is on the one hand written in a Christian context with a nod as above to the idea of Courtly love while on the other the mutual decapitation challenge (not to be tried at home) that the Green Knight and Sir Gawaine are engaged in reminds me a bit of the Mabinogion in which occasionally the loss of one's own head, while moderately inconvenient, is not necessarily fatal.

Then Gawain called as loudly as his lungs would allow,
'Who has power in this place to honour his pact?
Because good Gawain now walks on this ground. Whoever will meet him should emerge this moment and he needs to be fast - it's now or it's never.'
'Abide,' came a voice from above the bank.
'You'll cop what's coming to you quickly enough.'

Though above all this is a poem that has the taste of childhood about it, not because we enjoyed decapitating each other back down in Sarf London, but because the story of Sir Gwain's quest is interwoven with the memory of walking through the park to school on a foggy autumn morning when the fog was so thick that I could not even see the trees lining the pathway, lost in the wilderness wandering wildly in search of the green chapel with only my little feet to guide me to my destination. ...more

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Oct 14, 2017 Ashleigh (a frolic through fiction) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: physically-own, favourites, classics, translations

I actually can't believe how much I loved this! I was looking forward to it, but something about it just enchanted me entirely. ...more

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Jan 16, 2015 Aubrey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, reality-check, antidote-think-twice-all, antidote-translated, z-2, poetry, translated, 3-star, r-goodreads, 1-read-on-hand

I gave this three stars because it whetted my sapiosexuality for (view spoiler), because seriously, if you hate women, there's only three things you can do to tide me over with your writing: not write about them, be glorious at everything else, or include a female character who for all your fancy rhythms obviously scares the living shit out of you. In the words of the immortal Shelley, if I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other, and with twenty lines out I gave this three stars because it whetted my sapiosexuality for (view spoiler), because seriously, if you hate women, there's only three things you can do to tide me over with your writing: not write about them, be glorious at everything else, or include a female character who for all your fancy rhythms obviously scares the living shit out of you. In the words of the immortal Shelley, if I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other, and with twenty lines out of 2530 in this Arthurian tale, a little goes a long way.

Moving beyond the author's obvious issues and more towards the stuffs of academia, it's hard to be impressed by this if one encounters Beowulf and The Heptameron first. The former has it beat in terms of pure strength of utterance, while the latter has it beat in, well, everything else. It's the curse of encountering the critique before the critiqued, and while SGatGK has got a lovely sense of nature and hunting and male fashion, it doesn't make up for the utter flatline of the themes. Yes, lack of honor is the worst, yes, all women are lying whores, yes, it sucks that you can't get rid of sin no matter how many people are forgiven by, but guess what? Least you don't have to deal with Eve and all that biblical jazz. Gawain's mark of shame even turns into a fashion accessory of significant social status at the end which, as far as thematic meaning goes, I'm not even going to attempt to contextualize but will tell you for a fact that it must be amazing.

What else. If I had to write an essay about this I'd explore the relation of Nature to Humanity and all such Wicker Man themes, but it's not something I'll go after unless I have to. There was rhyme and meter and some interesting stuff about fundamental differences between Germanic and Latin senses of poetry in the introduction, so that'll be useful in the future. Armitage even gives the benefit of the doubt to whether the unknown is indeed male in the ending appendage, but frankly, he can have it. I'll take what bits and pieces I can manage and leave the glory behind.

So summer comes in season with its subtle airs,
when the west wind sighs among shoots and seeds,
and those plants which flower and flourish are a pleasure
as their leaves let drip their drink of dew
and they sparkle and glitter when glanced by sunlight.
Then autumn arrives to harden the harvest
and with it comes a warning to ripen before winter.
The drying airs arrive, driving up dust
from the face of the earth to the heights of heaven,
and wild sky wrestles the sun with its winds,
and the leaves of the lime lay littered on the ground,
and grass that was green turns withered and gray.
Then all which had risen over-ripens and rots
and yesterday on yesterday the year dies away,
and winter returns as is the way of the world
through time.
At Michaelmas the moon
stands like that season's sign,
a warning to Gawain
to rouse himself and ride.

...more

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Feb 25, 2009 Eddie Watkins rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: youthful mediaevelists

I'd been attracted to this poem for years and years, but somehow never read it; tiptoeing 'round it like a gentleman too dignified to display his blood-gorged book lust. The title itself attracted me - the name Gawain and the idea of a Green Knight evoked plenty of mental imagery: greenery and silver clashings in fecund fairy tale landscapes. I also like the way Tolkien's name looks and sounds (evocative of tangled teeming forests clearly delineated) so I dipped into his version a while ago, but I'd been attracted to this poem for years and years, but somehow never read it; tiptoeing 'round it like a gentleman too dignified to display his blood-gorged book lust. The title itself attracted me - the name Gawain and the idea of a Green Knight evoked plenty of mental imagery: greenery and silver clashings in fecund fairy tale landscapes. I also like the way Tolkien's name looks and sounds (evocative of tangled teeming forests clearly delineated) so I dipped into his version a while ago, but it seemed stiff and wooden, even opaque, or something, so I didn't pursue it. Then along came this version, translated by a fairly young English poet, Simon Armitage, with a back blurb by John Ashbery (a favorite poet of mine), so I gave it a whirl.

All of these old books should be translated by young poets. What freshness! What verve and bounce! I cantered right through it like a glossy horse over tight green turf. This is a remarkable poem; its literary sophistication tempered by rustic intemperence, striking imagery, bejeweled descriptions of gracile angelic maidens and boar hunting gore, and mysterious castles and the Woodwose (or Wodwo) the Wildman of the Woods. I'm sure scholars have taken issue with Armitage's obvious strayings from literal translation, but who cares! The point is to keep these old texts alive, and Armitage does that in sprightly spades. Instead of dead paper this book should've been printed on live leaves.

It's a fairly simple and well-known story, so I won't go into its details, but I must mention the overall chaste (yet pan-sexual) sexiness of it. Gawain is one of the great androgynous heroes in literature, but then the Middle Ages were filled with the likes of him - dandies with blood-smeared swords, lithe curvy athletes in bright body-hugging armor - and his mild, ambiguous undoing in the poem is his acceptance of a green silk girdle proffered to him by a temptress. The author momentarily lingers over his description of this silk garment worn beneath his shining armor, emphasizing the muscled curves. The girdle will protect him from harm; the harm being his accepting as part of a deal to be beheaded by the Green Knight (the Green Knight allowed Gawain to behead him at the beginning, before trotting off with his green head under his green arm). Mutual beheading? Green silken undergarment and a sword? There is some dense pan-sexual coding in that scene. But the sword merely knicks Gawain's extended neck, and he's allowed to return to Camelot lightly shamed, with a fast fading scar. ...more

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Oct 29, 2016 Jon Nakapalau rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural-studies, poetry, classics, favorites

A foundational legend that has influenced many other works. One of the best examinations of what chivalry was meant to represent...and for that reason a very important work.

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Sep 21, 2012 Nicky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, myth-legend-saga-etc, poetry, medieval-literature, arthurian

"Note: you have also reviewed the following editions of this book:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Paperback) (isbn )
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Paperback) (isbn 0140440925)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Paperback) (isbn 0140424539)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (isbn 0719055172)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (isbn 0571223281)
Sir Gawain & the Green Knight (Paperback) (isbn 0030088801)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Paperback) (isbn 1146360738)"

Oops.

Anyway, I reread Simon Armitag ...more

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Mar 30, 2019 Piyangie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-classic, brittish-lit, poetry

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a medieval poem by which a one of the stories of Arthurian legend is told. It concerns Sir Gawain, youngest Knight of the Round Table who is also King Arthur's nephew. On a New Year's Eve, a strange green knight enters the court of King Arthur and challenges the knights in to a "beheading game" which challenge, sir Gawain accepts. According to the challenge by the green Knight he was to be beheaded by his axe and whoever accepts the challenge to expect the sa ...more

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Nov 29, 2018 Tamara Agha-Jaffar rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2018-reading-challenge, books-i-ve-reviewed, favorites, owned-books, fiction, mythic-historical-retellings, fantasy-magical-realism

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by an anonymous late 14th Century author is a chivalric romance written in Middle English. But you don’t have to be proficient in Middle English to read it as there are several excellent translations available, including some on line.

This is a delightful Medieval poem about the adventures of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew. The events occur during two consecutive Christmas seasons and involve a jolly green giant, a beheading, a quest, a journey into the wildernes ...more

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Sep 05, 2013 Thomas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, read-for-college

Perhaps my favorite Arthurian classic so far. Loved the alliterative verse and the beautiful descriptions of seasons - the conflicting ideas centered on chivalry, courtship, religion, etc. all made the reading much more intellectually stimulating. Not to mention that the ending throws in a wedge that forces one to evaluate the overall theme of the poem, or whether a unifying theme exists at all. Highly recommended for those interested in British literature and for those who want to give it a try ...more

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Oct 13, 2020 Briar's Reviews rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, classics, mythology, fantasy-supernatural, historical, fiction, british

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is another great read for one of my English classes. I honestly love being able to read classic literature and hearing someone else's thoughts on it. I like seeing if I had the same understanding or if I was "way off" (per say, literature can be subjective).

This one was not my favourite but it was pretty cool. I always wanted to venture into some King Arthur and Camelot stories, so this one fit the bill. While it's not my favourite, it was very interesting to read ...more

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Dec 19, 2018 Cphe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: england, short, 2018, crosses-genres, classic, historical, western-canon

Thoroughly enjoyed the rousing tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This surprisingly readable story has something for even the most jaded reader. Well worth a look at.

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Apr 08, 2019 Kathleen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, 2019-challenges, mythological, poetry

“But mind your mood, Gawain,
keep blacker thoughts at bay,
or loose this lethal game
you’ve promised you will play”

In addition to his own made-up bedtime stories, my father loved to tell us tall tales--sagas of heroes and bravery with fantastic, hard-to-believe aspects that made them special and memorable. Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox Babe stand out in my memory. The fantastical elements, when told in just the right way, bring magic and trepidation that make for a mesmerizing and satisfying story.

Re ...more

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Apr 09, 2019 Sara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, classics

Shame be to the man who has evil in his mind

Written c. 1375, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an Arthurian quest fantasy. It has all the elements that make such a fantasy work, the brave and redoubted knight, the alluring lady, the magical and mysterious stranger (after all, the Green Knight is able to have his head removed and then hold it in his hand while it talks to you), the ranging quest and the moment of truth.

The poetry is so beautifully written; it sings. I do not know, but I imag ...more

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May 22, 2012 Arthur Graham rated it liked it · review of another edition

She gave him her 'girdle', did she? A little something to remember her by, hmmmm? Personally, I found it rather hard to believe that a hound dog like Gawain would pass up the opportunity, but I did ultimately enjoy this humorous tale of chivalry and self-imposed cockblockery. Green Knight rules! ...more

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Jun 07, 2009 Mark Adderley rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arthurian-studies

It’s always puzzling to know what to do with a book subtitled “A New Verse Translation.” It’s all very well for the moment, of course, but what about in a few years? When the translation is no longer new, will it need a new title? I have similar reservations about terms like “postmodern.” What comes after it? Post-postmodern? And is modernism now called pre-postmodernism?

All of which doesn’t seem strictly relevant, except that I can’t help feeling that there’s something slightly self-conscious a It’s always puzzling to know what to do with a book subtitled “A New Verse Translation.” It’s all very well for the moment, of course, but what about in a few years? When the translation is no longer new, will it need a new title? I have similar reservations about terms like “postmodern.” What comes after it? Post-postmodern? And is modernism now called pre-postmodernism?

All of which doesn’t seem strictly relevant, except that I can’t help feeling that there’s something slightly self-conscious about Simon Armitage’s new verse translation of the Middle English masterpiece Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is somehow symbolized by the subtitle.

The other thing about the subtitle is that it is exactly the same as Seamus Heaney’s new verse translation of Beowulf, which, since it was published in 1999, isn’t really new any more. On the front cover of Armitage’s translation is a glowing review from Heaney, and in the Acknowledgements section, Armitage acknowledges Heaney himself and his translation as one of his inspirations. Inside the jacket-flap, another reviewer, this one anonymous (like both the Beowulf- and Gawain-poets, ironically) but writing for the Sunday Telegraph, enthuses about how both Armitage and, earlier, Heaney, have helped “to liberate Gawain [or, presumably, Beowulf:] from academia.” Like Heaney’s Beowulf, Armitage’s Gawain has a facing-page original text and translation; like Heaney’s Beowulf, Armitage’s Gawain has a black cover with a stylish armoured figure on it; like Heaney’s Beowulf, Armitage’s Gawain has ragged pages along the vertical edge, making is I suppose equally difficult to turn the page.

Heaney’s Beowulf was well known, among other things, for bringing the ancient poem right up-to-date—the new date, that is, not the eighth-century date at which the poem was composed. Thus, Heaney translated the poem’s famous opening word, “Hwæt!” as “So.” Further down the page, the Old English “þæt wæs god cyning!” became “That was one good king.” Such translations as these made many academics wonder about the advisability of providing “new verse translations” of medieval poems. But since, as the Sunday Telegraph’s reviewer enthusiastically proclaimed, the aim of both translations was to liberate the poems from academics, what they thought really didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Faber and Faber in Britain, and W. W. Norton in America were turning not to translators with a knowledge of the Middle Ages for these translations, but to poets who had to learn the language as they went.

I’ll give you some examples from Armitage’s Gawain. Early in the poem, when the feast in Camelot, the Gawain-poet writes that the canopy over the royal dais “were enbrawded and beten wyth the best gemmes / That myght be preved of prys wyth penyes to bye / in daye” (78-80). This can be literally translated as “were embroidered and beaded with the best gems that could be proved of value to buy in that day.” The translation is rough and unpleasant, but it’s literal. Armitage translates that the tapestry was “studded with stones and stunning gems. / Pearls beyond pocket. Pearls beyond purchase.” Here’s it’s not specifically the translation that’s at issue. Armitage has translated into a style that is hip for the moment—the use of parallelism and fragment—but which, for one, gives undue emphasis to a rather unimportant feature of the description and, for another, uses a poetic trick that pulls the reader out of the world of the poem and into the modern world. That was one good canopy.

Here’s another example. When Gawain arms to face the Green Knight at the end of the poem, the poet describes his armour as “The gayest into Grece” (2023). Acknowledging that “into” might better be translated as “unto,” we can see that the line is supposed to imply that Gawain’s armour is the most splendid in Europe—in the known world, in fact. in the medieval imagination, Greece was the edge of the civilized world. It included Byzantium, the seat of the eastern Roman Empire, known for its stylized art, gold and blue, richness and wealth. The description places Gawain’s armour in that oriental world, giving audiences a mental image of splendour, brightness, colour, vividness. Armitage writes that “no man shone more, it seemed / from here to ancient Greece.” Armitage specifically limits the reader to thinking not of Byzantine art, but of the Greece of mythology. The original line held both implications. The translation directs us exclusively to one.

In all fairness, Armitage defends this practice in his introduction and, as we might expect, his argument is airtight. So would an argument be from the opposite perspective. That’s the nature of argument. But I can’t help wondering if there’s something wrong with entrusting the translation of a masterpiece of medieval literature to someone whose expertise is modern poetry—Ted Hughes and the like. It’s like entrusting brain surgery to a heart specialist. Sure, he knows enough anatomy to get away with it. But I’m not sure that “getting away with it” is really enough. I’d like to be imaginatively transported to the world of medieval romance, not of new verse translations.

It’s also only fair to add that this is a highly readable translation. You speed through these pages, and time flies away from you. You’ve just met Arthur at Camelot, and before you know it, you’re reading the concluding lines. Some lines are particularly beautiful, particularly the famous passage of the seasons, and one passage actually made me think about the poem in a different way. (It was the section detailing Camelot’s craven assertion that it would be “Cleverer to have acted with caution and care” [line 677:]; that puts their eventual glib and joyous acceptance of Gawain’s error into a wholly different perspective, for me.)

Ultimately, I think, we have to see a book like this not so much as a translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but as Simon Armitage’s poem inspired by it. As such, it’s a beautiful achievement—certainly as beautiful as Heaney’s Beowulf—and will hopefully lure many readers to its source, the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
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Jan 10, 2012 Morgan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own, reread, translation

Are you looking for a quick, but violent, Christmas/New Year's poem? How about a poem set during Camelot with witches and heroic fantasy? Maybe something along the lines of Christian Romance? Or simply a good timeless poem?

After a quick reread I still love this poem. This isn't the original translation or edition I read, but it felt the same...maybe a little more modern with the language. I'd forgotten how detailed this was and how violent. I remembered some of the plot, but forgot about all hea ...more

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Nov 27, 2018 Roy Lotz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: anglophilia, lets-get-medieval

Though I have read this little tale twice now, and have been enchanted both times, I fear I have very little to say about it. The plot combines traditional tropes together in such a way that the story is instantly memorable; and the double action of the knightly pact and a bedroom temptation seems to neatly summarize the twin pillars of chivalric morality—manly combat and womanly tenderness. Literature professors can argue endlessly about the finer symbolism of the book; and general readers can, ...more

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Jan 08, 2019 Cindy Rollins rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reread, 2019, audiobooks, bookclub

I have read Tolkien's Sir Gawain translation many times and will probably read it again this month for our book club, but this poetic translation by Simon Armitage is outstanding in my unscholarly opinion. Perhaps it was the suberb narration. You could really imagine this as a poem that was recited over and over again around those rings of fire. Bill Wallis not only read the translation in a lilting northern accent but then he turned around and read the original.

I found the whole experience exc ...more

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Feb 02, 2010 Alex rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reading-through-history, top-100, 2009, middle-ages, rth-lifetime

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 ...more

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Jan 08, 2015 Nora rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: witches-wizards-and-other-magicians, stand-alone, books-i-read-for-school, fantasy, obnoxious-mc, classics, royalty, faraway-lands, lolwut, poetry

I mean the story is interesting enough, but God is Gawain annoying. For fuck's sake man, you said you were sorry and you gave back the damn girdle. Do you really have to hang your head in shame for the rest of your days? If you're gonna be ashamed of something, it should be that gross misogynistic rant at the end of the poem. ...more

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An Tir Book Club: Sir Gawain and The Green Knight Themes	1	1	Oct 22, 2019 11:33PM
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