Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

by Simon Armitage

Synopsis:

Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was rediscovered only two hundred years ago, and published for the first time in 1839. One of the earliest great stories of English literature after Beowulf, the poem narrates in crystalline verse the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts the Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company and challenging one of their number to a wager. The virtuous Gawain accepts and decapitates the intruder with his own axe. Gushing blood, the knight reclaims his head, orders Gawain to seek him out a year hence, and departs. Next Yuletide Gawain dutifully sets forth… His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dream-like castle, a dire challenge answered — and a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing.

Simon Armitage’s new version is meticulously responsive to the tact and sophistication of the original — but equally succeeds in its powerfully persuasive ambition to be read as an original new poem. It is as if, six hundred years apart, two northern poets set out on a journey through the same mesmeric landscapes — acoustic, physical and metaphorical — in the course of which the Gawain poet has finally found his true and long-awaited translator.

Simon Armitage’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not a straightforwardly scholarly one (though if you read his introduction, it’s clear that he’s critically engaged with the poem, its language, and the process of translation). It’s a bit like Seamus Heaney’s take on Beowulf: it’s a translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and it’s also something of its own.

It’s definitely not the version I used when studying the poem, though it is my favourite, and it’s long been the translation I would recommend for pure fun. If you want a version of Sir Gawain that doesn’t have any spin put on it, you’ll be best off leaving this aside and going to find a copy of the Middle English version with glosses, or if you can’t read Middle English, a reasonable scholarly facing-translation.

But this version is an excellent one as far as experiencing the poem goes, playing with the language, genuinely attempting the alliterative form (sometimes to mixed success, in my opinion), and making the poem feel pretty alive. Read it aloud to yourself if you can!

I love it dearly, and I’ve just snagged a copy of the audiobook read by Armitage on Libro.fm, which should also be great. This was a very good reread choice on my part.

Rating: 5/5