Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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.

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.

A vigorous, engaging translation. Sometimes, the modern idiom is too anachronistic for my tastes, employing phrases that are not in keeping with the medieval subject, but this doesn't detract much from the overall experience.While the original text is on the opposite page, I would have appreciated footnotes to the original text in addition to the parallel translation. The original text is a lot less accessible than the middle English used by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, and for me much of the fun of reading a book like this is to understand how English has evolved. Footnotes would have helped a lot.

Probably my favourite translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight out there. Simon Armitage retains the feel of the original poem superbly whilst simultaneously adding his own gentle twist to it. Recommended for all fans of the original and of a good fantasy story.

RAS

This book was both surprisingly readable and surprisingly entertaining. The book tells the story of Sie Gawain, a nephew of KIng Arthur, who accepts a challenge from the Green Knight that will almost certainly result in his own death.I was always reluctant to pick up a book written circa 1400 in Middle English, but was motivated to pick up this book because of the positive reviews for Simon Armitage's translation of the work into contemporary English. Armitage even maintains a poetic feeling for the work.

Very interesting book

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