| Title | : | Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0460875108 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780460875103 |
| Language | : | English, Middle (1100-1500) |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1400 |
Journeying to the Knight's abode to receive his lot Gawain takes thehospitality of a Lord, and endures the advances of his wife. The Lord is the Green Knight and, when the time comes, merely nicks Gawain's neck for his infidelity and dishonour. Is Gawain a failure, or a hero?
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience Reviews
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With Wordes Ful Mony
Although it usually takes me quite some time and concentration to read it, I have always had a soft spot for Middle English poetry because I think there is a lot of beauty and power in those old texts, especially when you read them aloud. So I thought it high time to start reading the works of the Gawain poet, whose most famous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I remembered from my university days. Luckily, there is a Penguin edition which comprises all of his four poems:
Pearl
The edition starts with the allegorical poem Pearl in which the author – here we may safely assume a conflation of author and lyrical persona – tells us about a dream, a ”veray avysoun”, of his in which he converses with his late daughter, who died aged two, on the banks of a beautiful river. The poem is inspired by Christian piety and has the daughter, the author’s Pearl, appear as one of the 144,000 virgin brides of the Lamb we find mentioned in Revelation, and although she is now a beautiful woman, bedecked in clothes studded with pearls, the father immediately recognizes his daughter, but the ensuing conversation during which the Pearl explains to her father the world of bliss she has entered makes it clear that he as a mortal man has no grasp of the laws governing the world beyond because he mainly sees her as an individual, his lost daughter, whom he loves and cherishes, whereas she is now part of a heavenly host. The person he once rocked on his knee is no more, and the father has difficulty reconciling himself with that concept. Finally, when on an impulse he tries to cross the river separating himself and Pearl in order to get closer to the person he loves and whom, with a father’s eye, he spots among the host of virgins, he destroys the vision and finds himself alone at the foot of her grave.
For all the religious teachings, the glimpses into life after death, the daughter offers, Pearl is anything but a formulaic poem in that you can sense the bitterness and despair of the father’s grief, who has to realize that even in their long home, he will probably never recover his daughter as he knew her. It is thus a poignantly personal poem and it leaves no doubt about the impossibility for a mortal being to get a clear understanding of death, and maybe also to find comfort in the thought that there is a life after death. On the surface, the father submits to God’s will, when he says,”Lord, mad hit are that agayns thee stryven
Or proferen thee oght agayns thy pay”,
but his despair is clearly palatable. It does go to a reader’s heart to sense the genuine anguish of a man who poured it into words centuries ago.
Saying that, I think that the Gawain Poet bears comparison with Chaucer on any level, whose language is more elegant and refined, in that there is a sterling quality about the style of this man from the North-West Midlands. Just take the following example, where he describes the riverside of his dream, whose beauty still carries memories of the sadder waking world:”The dubbement of tho derworth depe
Were bonkes bene of beryl bryght.
Swangeande swete the water con swepe,
With a rounande rurk raykande aryght.
In the founs there stonden stones stepe,
As glent thurgh glasse that glowed and glyght,
As stremande sternes, when strothe-men slepe,
Staren in welkyn in wynter night;
For uch a pobbel in pole there pyght
Was emerad, saffer, or gemme gent,
That all the logh lemed of lyght,
So dere was hit adubbement.”
Cleanness
Cleanness is a homiletic poem, i.e. its aim is to illustrate the importance of chastity with the help of examples taken from the Bible. The poem is rather long and falls into three major parts, each of which centring on one particular example of how God wreaked his ire on those who allowed themselves to be degraded by wantonness and filth – in the first part, the poet tells the story of Noah and the Great Flood, in the second, we hear of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Loth’s escape, and the final part gives us the story of the Babylonian king Belshazzar and the Writing on the Wall. In dealing with these well-known Biblical tales, the poem deftly plays out his narrative and descriptive skills, when instead of simply sticking to the details given in the original texts, he enlarges on certain side aspects as for example the suffering of humans and animals when the waters are rising, or how the Persians infiltrate Babylon at night and kill the king in his bed. The vividness of these familiar stories bears impressive testimony to the Gawain poet’s imagination and his ability to imbue the Biblical texts with new vigour. What is theologically interesting is his idea of God as rather prone to the deadly sin of wrath when it comes to balancing accounts with people who are wallowing in the meaner passions of wantonness and depravity. It seems that God, Who is normally pictured as a serene and just Father, is quite apt to lose His temper in these situations. To make his point clearer, the poet, even describes Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered Jerusalem and robbed the temple vessels, as sensible enough not to desecrate them, and that is why God’s punishment of Nebuchadnezzar allowed for the chance of redemption, which is not granted to his more obtuse and lecherous son.
Patience
Next to Cleanness, Patience is the other of the two homiletic poems written by the Gawain Poet, and like its counterpart it sets out to exemplify the good of a Christian virtue by means of a Bible story. By “patience” the author means a certain fortitude of spirit which enables you to bear suffering or the prospect of it, since the pains afflicted by life will be even harder to endure if you rebel against them. Likewise, a patient person does not give in too readily to the urge to rejoice overmuch over any good that befalls them, knowing that life is fickle and may easily withdraw the bounties you are making so much of. The Gawain Poet here tells the story of the reluctant prophet Jonah, who fears for his life when he is ordained to go and tell the people in Ninive some quite unpleasant things and who prefers to make a bolt for it – with the well-known results. Patience is a remarkable poem in that its author goes to great lengths in order to give a realistic idea of what is going on with Jonah, and he even includes details like the nilly-willy prophet’s snoring in the bowels of the ship, complete with the sleeper’s saliva drivelling out of his mouth. All in all, this is not a very prepossessing image of a venerable prophet.
To top it all, the Gawain Poet is well aware of the fact that after being vomited onto the shore by the fish, Jonah might not have been too palatable to people’s eyes and noses:
”Then he swepe to the sonde / in sluchchede clothes;
Hit may wel be that mester were / his mantyle to wasche!”
Apart from that, Jonah is not only a sorry sight to look at, but he also behaves like most of us would have behaved: After the people of Ninive are granted God’s pardon due to their penance, Jonah starts pouting and tells God that he knew all along that He would spare them after all, and this now makes him seem like a liar, which is why he never wanted to go there in the first place. Unlike in the Bible story, however, we know from the poem that Jonah’s actual motive for shunning God’s errand was his concern about his personal safety, and that only in retrospect does he credit himself with more refined motives. In other words, the Gawain Poet not only has a wonderful eye for detail and the skill to put it into marvellous language, but also deep psychological insight into human nature.
Next to the Green Knight, this is the best poem in the collection, if you ask me.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is the last of the four poems which are commonly ascribed to the anonymous “Pearl Poet” or “Gawain Poet”, and it is probably the best-known and the only one of them which is clearly secular in nature. The story begins on New Year’s Eve when King Arthur and his court have assembled for a sumptuous banquet and suddenly a rather rude stranger, clad in green and armed with a Danish axe, appears and challenges the knights in the following manner: Who is there among the knights that dares deal him a fell blow with that axe and then receive a counter-blow by him – if a counter-blow can still be made – after the lapse of one year and a day? As everyone present is astounded at this seemingly crazy challenge, Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew, rises to the occasion, in order to defend the honour of the court, the Green Knight taking their inaction for cowardice instead of amazement, and he merrily chops of the rude knight’s head. But lo! the mysterious stranger picks up his head, carries it nonchalantly by the hair and fixes an appointment with Sir Gawain: By New Year’s Eve next year, Gawain is to make his appearance at the Green Chapel and endure the knight’s retaliation, the only unsettling detail being that Gawain is not able to do that trick of carrying his head around. Nevertheless, he feels himself bound by his promise and seeks out his adversary, but on his way to the Green Chapel, he stops at a castle, whose lord offers him to host him for Christmas there and then tell him the way to the place he is looking for. Gawain and the lord enter into a friendly covenant, which obliges the host to give up to his guest the quarry of his hunts in return for whatever Gawain, who is to stay at the castle and to recover from his travels, will receive in the course of the day. Now, the following three days, the lord of the castle and his merry men go hunting, and while they are roaming the forests, the lord’s wife, a beautiful damsel, does her own bit of hunting, too. Morning after morning, she enters Gawain’s bedroom where she tries to seduce him. The good knight knows that it would be a betrayal both to his own codices of honour and to his host’s trust, to sleep with the man’s wife, but courtly etiquette, and his reputation as a womanizer, also demand that he be not impolite to a lady, and so he cannot simply tell her to cut it out. Instead, he enters on the terrain of elegantly parrying all her advances without snubbing her, and they pass their time in agreeable conversation. When the host arrives later in the day and presents Gawain with the animals he has hunted, the good knight returns him the kisses – given in decency – he received from the lady, without telling him where he got them. So far so good. But on the last day, the lady urges Gawain to accept a gift as a love-token, a request that Gawain elegantly turns down – until the lady offers him a girdle of hers which has the power to protect its owner from blows, cuts and other injuries. Gawain, afraid for his life during the encounter with the Green Knight, cannot resist this temptation and accepts the girdle, and what is more, he fails to hand it out to the host, thus breaking their covenant. When, a few days later, he meets his opponent at the Green Chapel, Gawain is in for a surprise …
Sir Gawain is probably one of the best-known chivalric romances, and at the same time it struck me as uncommonly modern. This was because for all his prowess and principle, its protagonist is anything but a faultless knight in shining armour and we do not go through just another tale of heroic achievement. Gawain, like most of us would be, is quite afraid for his life when he anticipates his encounter with the Green Knight in which it is incumbent on him to receive the first blow kneeling, with the nape of his neck offered to the blow of the axe. In other words, the deal he made with the Green Knight and to which his honour makes him stick, is going to send him to his certain death. Knowing this, and hoping to miraculously escape, Gawain accepts the girdle, although this means breaking the promise he made to his host, i.e. to exchange whatever he received in the course of the day for the host’s gifts. Gawain’s tragedy lies in the fact that both the Green Knight and King Arthur and his followers regard this failure to keep his word as a venial sin, since it was committed with a view to preserve his own life – and in this they are backed up by the theological authority of Thomas Aquinas, who said that a sin is diminished if it was motivated by fear for one’s life. Gawain himself, however, cannot find it in himself to see his lapse in such a reconciliatory light because all that counts for him is that he did not manage to live up to his own set of values, and he decides to wear the girdle as a sign of his shame henceforth.
This tension between societal values and one’s own individual convictions makes Gawain a fascinating, rather modern figure and also gives the poem the power to still speak to us modern readers. Even before he received the girdle, Gawain was in a dilemma: His own truthfulness and loyalty - ”trauthe” - required him to fend the enticing lady off, whereas courtly etiquette - ”courtaysye” - made it impossible for him to bluntly tell the lady that he was not interested in her, and so he entered into a game at the end of which he was offered that alluring girdle. Gawain’s dilemma is quite a modern one since most of us have probably often found ourselves in a situation in which society obliged us to profess to an idea that in our heart of hearts we felt to be a lie, or at least to swallow this lie. This may be especially true in an age whose hallmark is the cheap moralization of political life, and it may well have been easier for Gawain to rebuff the obtrusive lady than it is for us to speak what we regard as truth in an age of public indignation.
While it is fascinating to discover parallels to modern life in a text that is 600 years old, the poem is also worth reading because of the author’s masterly use of language and his ability to conjure up a certain atmosphere. Personally, I’d say that the Gawain poet is able to maintain a standard of intensity and genuineness that Chaucer, doubtless the more elegant poet of the two, achieves at times only, for instance in The Franklin’s Tale. Here is a passage that tells us how Gawain, on arriving at the Green Chapel, hears the sound of his opponent’s whetting his weapon:”Then herd he of that highe hille, in a hard roche,
Biyonde the brok in a bonk, a wonder breme noyse.
What! hit clatered in the clyff as hit cleve schulde,
As one upon a gryndelston had grounden a sythe;
What! hit warred and whette as water at a mulne;
What! hit rusched and ronge, routhe to here.”
(to be continued in the comment section) -
Pearl
Previously familiar to me from Tolkien's translation.
It's tough going for the uninitiated, using original spelling (i.e. thorn, yogh, "u" for "v" etc.) and the dialect makes it even more difficult. I found it harder going even than Piers Plowman which itself is more demanding than Chaucer's dialect.
The poem is a dream-vision, as is Piers Plowman. Such visions also occur in Middle English Romances, e.g. the Sege of Melayne but they are of starkly contrasting nature. Piers and Pearl are both pious works, tackling serious theological questions and inhabiting a Christian space of serious reflection on Jesus' moral message, where-as the Romances tend towards psychopathic mass murder of Saracens/Muslims as the way to go if you want to get to heaven...
Here the author describes a man finding comfort in a dream of his recently deceased young daughter having come to Heaven and everlasting joy. It seems more tender and personal than Piers, leading many to assume that the dreamer and the dead girl are in fact the author and his daughter. It's also more accessible than Piers in that the theological discussions are at least conducted in (Middle) English as opposed to the continual Latin Biblical quotes of Piers - it's also a lot shorter!
Whilst I feel that the author is essentially telling himself a fairy tale in order to assuage his own grief, I can appreciate his feelings of love and loss and unfairness and they are set down in a way that sounds delightful if you can get your ear well enough attuned.
Cleanness
I enjoyed this a lot more than Pearl. It's more or less a sermon on the necessity for "cleneness" of spirit if one wants to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, illustrated by three Old Testament tales; Noah and the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and finally The Writing on the Wall. Not being Christian, the framing sermon is of little interest to me, but the Bible stories were great, because of the way they were re-told. The poet feels no need to restrict himself to the limits of the source and adds details and imagery from both common folklore and his own imagination. These add a great deal and show off the author's impressive descriptive powers - powers that did not really shine through in Pearl because of its very limited and oft repeated palette of metaphor. Here, however, diverse and vivid imagery abounds, along with little details that delight, e.g. the idea of Lot's wife being used as a salt lick by cattle after she foolishly turns to look at the destruction of the cities behind her.
Patience
The shortest of the four poems in the manuscript has more in common with Cleanness than the other two, since it follows the same format of a sermon followed by an "examplum" Biblical story. Here we have the tale of Jonah retold in the same style as the stories appearing in Cleanness, with embellishments, delightful imagery (sailors holding Jonah's feet while the whale has his head in its mouth stands out) and a verve that lacks in the original source. I would strongly recommend starting here rather than with Pearl if you want to find out how good the Gawain Poet can be.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is, of course, the main event; what brought me to be reading this book in the first place. Twice as long as the next longest poem in the manuscript, in four parts and comprised of 101 stanzas. It's fundamentally different in approach to the other three poems. It's neither a dream-vision nor a sermon with exempla. Instead it is a Romance. No, not one of those preposterous billionaire alpha-hole marries shy and retiring introvert romances, a knights and ladies and preposterous adventures Romance. It is, however, still deeply informed by Christianity. Going by the extant Middle English poetry, there were really two major strands of Christian philosophy in the Mediaeval period. One was a gung-ho "we're better than everyone else and we'll slaughter you if you disagree in order to prove it," approach as exemplified by Romances such as The Sege of Melayne, in which the clergy form their own army to fight Saracen invaders. Another was a philosophical and introspective approach involving serious Bible study with a focus on the moral teachings of Jesus in particular, as exemplified by the lengthy Piers Plowman. Now, Gawain and the Green Knight has all the trappings of a Romance, what with a giant green knight with a green horse who can survive being beheaded turning up at King Arthur's Court, cavemen living in the wilds, a mysterious castle in the back of beyond and a witch who lives there, but it also clearly takes Christianity more seriously than just a tribal label to fight for, "My God is better than your God!"
This is first advertised fairly early on by the symbolism of the pentagram on Gawain's shield and the portrait of the Virgin Mary on its inside, then made clear when Gawain, despairing of ever finding the Green Chapel, mired in the wilds, suffering from being away from civilisation for months and running out of time, prays to Mary and finds an unfamiliar castle soon after. But the whole adventure is a series of tests. The over-arching requirement to attend an appointment with what one can reasonably only expect to be one's own death is a test of honour and bravery and the quest to find the Green Chapel is a test of commitment in the face of physical suffering and danger, with no guarantee of success, that is only passed through an act of Christian faith. (The prayer to Mary.) After arriving at Bertilak's castle and being assured that the Green Chapel is nearby and he can rest and relax, Gawain is in fact even more thoroughly morally examined. He's wooed continuously by Bertilak's wife and tempted to cheat on a silly game he's agreed to play with Bertilak. The temptation is enormous because it could turn out to be the only way Gawain can survive beyond the next day - and he succumbs to speaking a lie in order to try to preserve his own life. Gawain passes every test he's put through except this one. All of this is about faith, Christian and chivalric virtue and courtly manners, not about conquering the infidel in the name of the Lord. This, in the context of three other poems that treat themes of faith and personal virtue as the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven leads me to the strong conviction that what we have here is a deliberate and conscious subversion of the populist, xenophobic, intolerant and mostly plain silly Romance form to the ends of serious Christian moral instruction, written by a devout believer. Which leads to the question of what lesson we are supposed to learn.
In the introduction, Andrews and Waldron point out that there are three views expressed about Gawain's lie/cheat in the swapping game:
Gawain's own view is that it is a disaster that has ruined his honour forever. Whilst he ruefully complains about how women through history have tempted men to ruin, with examples such as Adam and Eve and Sampson and Delilah (note - Biblical cases) he also says he is going to openly wear the girdle that cost him his honour as an antidote to future pride and a spur to greater humility. He doesn't seem to be seriously saying the moral fault lies with anybody but himself. And it's a major fault.
Bertilak, instigator of this whole series of events, who openly admits that they were deliberately intended as a test of Arthur's court and it's reputation, is more forgiving. He says that Gawain's lie/cheat was trivial in the circumstances and fully repaid by the cut to the neck Gawain received (which it's later hinted leaves a permanent scar). That was punishment enough, given the threat to Gawain's life and his passing of all the more serious tests. Gawain should forget about it - he and Arthur's court are vindicated.
Finally, the knights back home take the view that the whole adventure redounds greatly and solely to the benefit of the reputation of Arthur's court and don't take the girdle incident at all seriously.
Who was right? What did the Pearl Poet think? Tolkien, in the intro to his translation, infers that the point is that courtly manners are entirely secondary to genuine Christian morals and that the fact that Gawain is not seduced by Bertilak's wife is what really counts. This might well be true. The Poet certainly never overtly states an opinion to the contrary. I can't help thinking, though, that the fact that Gawain wears the girdle as a reminder of past failure is actually the key lesson, because it fits so well with what is going on in the other poems. What Gawain learns is greater humility and not to pride himself on his honour but to try to do better in the future. Striving for self-improvement and forgiveness of past failure are major moral tenets of non-fundamentalist interpretations of Jesus' message and that's what happens: Bertilak forgives and Gawain goes forward trying to do better in future.
Overview of the whole book
Wow! I knew this was going to be a challenge but didn't think it could be tougher than Piers Plowman. In fact the only ways in which Piers was harder were in over-all length and the heavy use of Latin that I simply don't know at all. Reading all four poems was a really worth-while exercise not solely because each has its merits but because taking them together informs each one individually. This was especially true of Gawain and I strongly recommend reading it last, rather than skipping the others or reading them after. This also has the incidental benefit of the reader having developed some familiarity with the obscure and difficult dialect and spelling that make Chaucer look like a book for kindergardeners. Pearl is the dullest, though most personal and heart-felt, of all the poems and lacks the story-telling verve and exciting and varied imagery of the others, so maybe don't start there, either. The re-tellings of Bible stories are the highlights of the other two poems and some of the scenes and images in those will stay with me just as long as any of the crazy events in Gawain.
So - hard work but amply repaid and a long standing ambition achieved! -
Dissent, indict Him through the years,
HIs steps stirs not one inch astray.
No tittle is gained for all your tears,
though you should grieve and never be gay.
Abate your bluster, be not so fierce,
And seek His grace as soon as you may,
For Prayer has power to bite and pierce
And call compassion into play.
His mercy can wipe your tears away,
Redeem your loss, restore content,
But, grudge, or be glad, agree or gainsay,
All lies with Him to give consent.
I've read all of these over the years except for The Pearl. An amazingly written poem in terms of both language and meter. The subject matter is a bit bland, large parts are quoting and retelling biblical passages. It is what it is, and it doesnt really detract from my enjoyment of the language. -
'Pearl'
Nothing dares be as magical as this elegy. -
By far the best edition of these poems I've ever come across. Gives the complete Middle English texts of of all four poems with extensive notes, introduction and glossary. Does for the Gawain poet what Frederick Klaeber did for Beowulf.
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This poem goes so hard. I love a memento mori, i love medieval history, and I love the color green, so there's really no surprises that I find this to be such a banger
The literary criticism about the poem is also awesome. I gravitate towards the readings that see it as a comic critique of medieval Christianity, rebuffed by the Pagan roots which had their hold in England only a few centuries prior. The Knights of the Round Table will behead someone on Christmas in the name of God...the Green Knight says no, you will not. -
I read the Medieval Romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” translated by Marie Borroff. This poem was a test of chivalry for Sir Gawain. The Green Knight proposes for someone to play his game. The rules were that one person is to try and cut the head off of the Green knight, and if they succeed they get to keep the ax. Although if they fail, in 12 months and a day the Green Knight will be able to cut the head off of his opponent. The game took place and someone lost, but in the end there was no loser.
Sir Gawain is the nephew of King Arthur and is a knight of the round table. Sir Gawain chooses to be an opponent in the Green Knights game, which he lost. Sir Gawain is a knight filled with chivalry throughout this poem, but also was deceitful. In the end, nobody was hurt and lessons were learned.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” took place in the 11th century. The setting took place in Camelot in the beginning. In the end the setting was was at the Green Chapel in North Wales.
The author’s message in this poem is to always do the right thing. Chivalry is the main theme of this Medieval Romance, and in the end Sir Gawain passes the game. Without bravery, honest, valor, and courage, Sir Gawain would have never passed The Green Knights game.
I would recommend this poem to English classes. I didn't really care for this story, but it does show you how chivalry works. -
Those are more of an academic four stars, rather than four stars of enjoyment. I prefer Tolkein's rendering of Gawain and the Green Knight, which strikes me as both more atmospheric and epic while also being more grounded in the language of the original, but I am about the furthest thing from a medieval expert. Take with a grain of salt. Pearl, on the other hand, is a very, very difficult poem, which I found horribly obscure and nearly unreadable in every single iteration I tried. This, however, has a gloss on the other side of Pearl in modern English, which finally helped me to get some sort of grip on it, at least its most basic meanings. Cleanness and Patience frankly look like vacations after the long, long endurance test that is Pearl, and attempting to decipher its many multilayered meanings and non-meanings. This book was extremely useful to me when I was first trying to get some grasp on Middle English.
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Gardner offers excellent critical essays on the Gawain poet, though, sadly, his chapter on the poet's "vision of reality" is quite short and a bit underdeveloped. His translations of these poems are consistently good. "Pearl" remains, to my mind, one of the most beautiful and brilliant works in all of medieval literature. Gardner's translation helped me to bask in its light anew.
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Great story, characters, and themes -- Gawain Poet delivers!
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Pearl hits different when you have a daughter
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I just read the poem Patience. This book was lent to me by one of my customers. He said the poem. Changed his life after some medical struggles.
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Honestly, not a horrible story just could’ve and should’ve been said in like one paragraph.
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I loved so much that I am translating it to Portuguese as a very good exercise in alliteration.
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[rating = B]
This is for "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" only. I really thought this was engaging and interesting. It also questions Knightly conduct and the idea of the cyclical nature of Glory, or ignoring failure. Although the Middle English is not as hard as some other texts, it is still useful to have a translation nearby. -
THIS REVIEW REFERS TO ANDREW & WALDRON (2007).
There's no doubting the value of the source material – the Pearl MS is a fascinating document, and its poems a wonderful set of Middle English texts, the language throbbing from the page – but this edition, standard as it may be considered, is in sorry need of updating.
Firstly, the typesetting is about as unfriendly to close reading as it could be, with the slight differences between bold, regular, and italic text of a rather fudgy appearance made even less legible by its being crammed together in awkwardly arranged pages. Then there're the footnotes – a nice idea, but often unhelpful and unfocussed. The glossary is so appalling to behold, with its terribly unclear multi-column layout and occasional missing content, that use becomes a chore and a frustration rather than a welcome aid.
The introduction is basic but acceptable, the extra material (Latin Vulgate extracts) perhaps less relevant and useful than one would really want, and though the inclusion of a modern English translation is welcome, the fact it comes as a PDF on a CD-ROM in the back of the book renders it pretty useless these days, when so many computers no longer even include an optical drive. Seriously, as of the time of review (2015), when was the last time you installed anything from a disk?
Re-set the text in a clearer, better-spaced typeface; clarify and correct the glossary; improve the utility and relevance of the footnote material; either devote some of the page to a translation or, to save paper and cost, just link to a download, and, while we're at it, annotate that translation usefully – then, perhaps, this will be an indispensable volume. As it is, however, it is rendered merely acceptable by the lack of alternatives.
TL;DR: beautiful content having a really, really bad ugly-day. -
The Gawain poet is wonderful -- while many of the poems here are not original in the bare facts of their narrative (with the exception of the pristine "Pearl"), what the Gawain poet lacks in originality he more than makes up for in his skill at recasting older biblical and Arthurian tales in new light. Indeed, his version of the Book of Jonah in "Patience" surpasses the scripture from which it draws upon in sonic quality, complexity of character, and dramatic force. What a wonder that such an incredible literary mediator as the Gawain poet worked at the same time as the only other truly great mediator in English, Chaucer.
This translation is not only a feat of scholarship (the notes and introductions to each poem are rigorous and consistently good), but a great poetic achievement, preserving the magic of Middle English alliteration and at times keeping certain Middle English words without modern equivalent untranslated. My one gripe is that this volume contains only the translated text, whereas I'd prefer something with the original ME version on the recto of each page. -
I just finished reading this book for my humanities class as part of our Poet unit, and I found it to be difficult to get into at first, although the last two Fitts really made up for it. After finishing the story, I realized that the story isn't simply for entertainment value, but rather as a means of realizing how Sir Gawain was determined to prove himself and thus become less "green". Unlike the other knights, Gawain feels that he needs to prove himself worthy of being a knight, especially since he is one of the younger knights and hasn't completed any adventures yet. I appreciated the fantasy aspect of the story, and the hidden meanings incorporated in it and the way the story progressed was very interesting to me.
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there is no time more beautifully, ominously dark than the week between christmas day and the coming of the new year; we eat and drink and make merry, with our windows tightly shut and our doors firmly barred against the wild winter but it's impossible not to feel the chill of the year breathing its last. it's this eerie sense of dread that i love about sir gawain and the green knight, the way the boundaries between the court and the wild, nature and the supernatural, reality and fantasy, history and myth are made thin, the familiar made unfamiliar, and all the while the beating heart of the poem is carrying us frantically closer to the moment of gawain's execution, and his blood against the snow.
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A very interesting, if slightly exhausting, read -- the parallel-text format kept tempting me over to the left-hand pages where I got dose after dose of the impenetrable original text of the mystery poet's works. I have to say that even with my limited knowledge of Middle English, some of the translations seemed very free indeed and I wonder how much of the meaning was lost or altered. Nevertheless this is an intriguing look into a deeply religious medieval mind -- and I do mean medieval, because the text content seemed so many decades older than anything I would have expected out of a poet writing in Middle English. I really wonder if these works were handed down from someone much earlier and if that accounts for the puzzling dialect...
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The rating is for
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as I haven't (yet) read the others. Sir Gawain is classic, it is rich and strange, full of weird symmetries and magic and winter and chivalry and language that is at once intricately structured and fiercely vital. I somehow have managed to acquire four copies of it––the Tolkien and Borroff translations, this, and the text in my Medieval English Lit textbook. -
Originally given away in CD format with the fifth edition of the Gawain poems by Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron, but now available in hardcover book format. Designed to be used by students as an aid to translating the original Middle English texts, the translators give a superb and accurate translation of all four poems contained in the Gawain manuscript.
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Although it may seem like a minor point of criticism, I really found myself wishing that the editors kept the thorns and yoghs- Middle English loses so much character in modern orthography- oh well . . . anyway, the end notes are exceptionally thorough, the glossary well encompassing, and the forewords to each individual poem are on the whole interesting. All in all this is a great edition.
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pearl was best
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Very helpful translation
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Gawain's my bae.
