 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Sir Gawain And The Green Knight/Pearl/Cleanness/Patience (Everyman's Library (Paper)) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Book Description
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is one of the most important alliterative poems of Medieval literature
Product Description
From the north-west midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dates from the second half of the 14th century.Gawain,a knight in Arthur's court,takes up the challenge of the Green Knight,and cuts off his head.The Knight informs Gawain he will have his revenge.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 GreenKnight and,when the time comes,merely nicks Gawain's neck for his infidelity and dishonour.Is Gawain a failure,or a hero?
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This edition is what I wanted but it took a lot of searching. Most editions now are translated for the modern reader, which misses the beauty of the original. This appears to be an authoritative edition which superseded the one (Tolkein) which I studied in college. It is well supported with notes and glosses and I like them on the page rather than having to turn to the end. The design is well done, so if you want to read just the poem and not be distracted by the transcriptions, you can just put a piece of paper over them, or just ignore them. You have the sense of the original plus support if you need it. This is a much better method than the Worlds Classics editions which drive one distracted with numbers in the text referring to notes at the back of the edition.
I was really pleased to see that the first poem is "Pearl" as it is this I bought it for, having, in my retirement a hankering to read it again. I just took off one star because the paper quality is a bit rough. However I am very pleased with it. Thank you Amazon.
I was really pleased to see that the first poem is "Pearl" as it is this I bought it for, having, in my retirement a hankering to read it again. I just took off one star because the paper quality is a bit rough. However I am very pleased with it. Thank you Amazon.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The story of this poem is pretty weird: Arthur's knights are eating their Christmas dinner when a hefty green man (why is he green? I've no idea!) walks in and challenges one of the knights to a duel. The poem follows Gawain, the knight who takes up the challenge, as he travels, in classic Arthurian fashion, through a wood, where he gets lost. A castle appears, Gawain goes in, and the kind host suggests offers him a bed for the knight: the bed in which his (the host's) daughter sleeps. We later learn that this host is the green man, disguised, and his offer is designed to test Gawain. Though Gawain is tempted, he keeps to his side of the bed, and travels on to meet the green man for a beheading game, unaware that he has already passed the test.
The poem is a combination of two mediaeval stories: the beheading challenge, and the temptation story (an good example of the latter, with a misogynistic twist at the end, can be found in 'Three Arthurian Romances', also in Everyman paperback). The poet (we don't know his name) has combined them in a sophisticated way: so that Gawain triumphs not through his bravery, but his morality. (This is itself a twist, because Gawain was usually depicted as a womaniser!)
There are a number of translations of this poem into modern English, but, needless to say, a lot is lost in translation. (The poet for example, has invented or mastered a form that mixes alliterative verse -- using repeated consonants -- with rhyming verse.) The Everyman edition gives the poem in the original, but has helpful glosses of all the strange words that crop up in this strange poem. (It also includes two other poems which might have been written by the same poet.)
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having studied a lot of medieval writing at university I was pleased to find something as fresh as Gawain and the Green Knight. There are so many levels to read this book on. You can look into all the allusions and the imagery, or you can read for pure enjoyment of the action in the story. The narrative is clear and even though it is written in an old style of English it does not take long to get into that way of thinking - it is not difficult to understand. I would recommend this to all lovers of good fiction, and tales of knights of old!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is a must for all lovers of medieval literature. Clearly written and understandable, it transports you back to a time when psychological allegory was important in explaining... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2009 by Ms. L. C. Cousins
A compendium of Middle English poetry
I don't have the technical expertise of previous reviewers to comment on the quality of the critical apparatus of this edition; however I would point out that its double page... Read more
Published on 26 Aug 2009 by Alexa
Magical and human
Middle English is a diverse collection of different dialects and styles, when it comes to literature. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2006 by Kurt Messick
Don't buy this edition
This edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has possibly the worst critical apparatus that I have ever seen in any supposedly scholarly text - it is quite simple: do not buy... Read more
Published on 11 Nov 2004
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
