Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Paperback – November 17, 2008

Characters with challenges and agendas--what's not to love? Knights and ladies and lords and mysteries! Get this and enjoy a foray into medieval entertainment.

First of all, note the five stars and don't read too much negativity into this review. It's just that I like the translation very much and a few missteps (as they appear to me) make me want to speak out.It has been said elsewhere that in some places Armitage chose to stray from the original even where the original is quite natural to the modern ear and, in rare cases, he used language which is jarring and discordant. I agree.Here is an example which, for me, was the most discordant ...Original:But in his honde he hade a holyn bobbe,That is grattest in grene when greves ar bare,And an ax in his other, a hoge and unmete,A spetos sparthe to expoun in spelle, quo-so myght.Translation:but held in his hand a sprig of holly---of all the evergreens the greenest ever---and in the other hand held the mother of all axes,a cruel piece of kit I kid you notThose last two lines made me blink. This is early in the poem and I almost gave up on the translation right there but am glad I did not. Other than a few rare examples like that (and none other so glaring) I enjoyed it immensely. This is a "five star" translation. What Armitage has done in this translation is not easy and deserves respect. He manages more than mere "accessibility" for the modern reader but also maintains a natural sense of speaking along with alliteration like the "percussive hoof beats" mentioned in another review. As they say, pure poetry.Anyway, here is my attempt at a translation of the above:but in his hand he had a holly sprig,that is greenest of green when groves are bare,and an ax in his other, huge to excess,a wicked war-ax to put into words, if one could.Note that the first two of those lines are nearly unchanged from the original, an example of where the (almost) original reads quite naturally. I'm still not satisfied with that last line but have had my nose so close to it I can no longer see the forest for the trees so will let it stand as it is (for now).

I cannot overstate how shocked and impressed I was by this version. Gawaine and the Green Knight has been done many times by many authors. The original is in Middle English which means you're reading a translation. That means most authors offering Gawaine are stodgy professor types.What makes this effort different was that Simon Armitage spent so much effort presenting the alliterative nature of the original text.The result is that his poem rolls off the tongue. The verse pulls you in. It reads like an adventure story. You get graphic descriptions of food that sound like the author is advertising a buffet. You get dialogue between characters that sounds like heroes bantering with each other on a movie screen.In short, it's fun.This Armitage translation shows you why Gawaine and the Green Knight was a popular story before it became the subject of academic study.

Sir Gawain is a great Arthur fable with a lot of twists and a Christian moral. Very cool to see some of the origins of the the legend.

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.

I thoroughly enjoyed the hard cover version of Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. First, language is loose and poetic and funny and, I think captures the mystery, profundity and good humor of the original. I actually read most of it aloud and would recommend that. I also love the lay-out of the book and the beautiful illustrations. I think it would be a wonderful book for any lover of literature. Highly recommended.