-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 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 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.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Book Description
Simon Armitage's thrilling and accessible translation of a the medieval poem
Product Description
Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was rediscovered only 200 years ago, and published for the first time in 1839. One of the earliest great stories of English literature, after Beowulf, the poem narrates 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.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A terrific book. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an early classic of English Literature - lost until the 19th century. This is a very readable, witty, bright translation with Simon Armitage's customary edge. In places: warm, funny, violent, dramatic, sexual. I've long been a big fan of Armitage - a Yorkshire writer who uses language brilliantly and has proved to be extremely versatile as poet, editor, playwright, novelist, non-fiction prose stylist and more recently translator. His Homer's Odyssey was a pleasure; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a delight. This would make a great Christmas present (much of the setting is Christmas/New Year) for anyone who enjoys literature.
41 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Thoroughly enjoyable, muscular, vivid, exciting rendition of this wonderful poem: I first read the original at university and loved it then. But Armitage's modernisation brings the text to life for those readers who aren't ever going to need or want to tackle Middle English. I can't recommend it too highly. It is beautifully paced, extremely detailed and accessible without in any way dumbing down. I really felt as though I was in the poem, particularly in the third and fourth sections where Gawain faces a moral dilemma.
Terrific. Simon Armitage is the true Poet Laureate of Britain, bringing our literary heritage to a fresh audience.
Terrific. Simon Armitage is the true Poet Laureate of Britain, bringing our literary heritage to a fresh audience.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"...It was Christmas at Camelot - King Arthur's Court,
where the great and the good of the land had gathered .."
Hopefully the recent - and excellent - BBC Four documentary in which Simon Armitage guided viewers on a journey through the literal landscape of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will have brought this poem to the attention of a wider audience.
This book works at every possible level: it's a wonderful translation from the Middle English of the 1400's, it's a rollickingly exciting tale of chivalry, drama and moral dilemma, and, most significantly, it stands as poetry in its own right.
One word of warning: your friends will inevitably soon regard you as dotty, as the book just cries out to be read aloud!
Impossible to recommend strongly enough!
where the great and the good of the land had gathered .."
Hopefully the recent - and excellent - BBC Four documentary in which Simon Armitage guided viewers on a journey through the literal landscape of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will have brought this poem to the attention of a wider audience.
This book works at every possible level: it's a wonderful translation from the Middle English of the 1400's, it's a rollickingly exciting tale of chivalry, drama and moral dilemma, and, most significantly, it stands as poetry in its own right.
One word of warning: your friends will inevitably soon regard you as dotty, as the book just cries out to be read aloud!
Impossible to recommend strongly enough!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Couldn't be happier!
This is a wonderful translation by Armitage. I REALLY like how it follows the alliterative form. It was easy to read as well.
Perfect.
Perfect.
Published 4 months ago by Peter Bryld
An exquisite translation of an Arthurian legend
One new year a Green Knight interrupts the feasting at Camalot and challenges the assembly: this day he will stand still an receive one blow from any one of them with his axe. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Aidan J. McQuade
Excellent attempt on the impossible!
Simon's transliteration has the grit, the feeling for landscape and the indefinable taste of "Northernness" of the original. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Bertilak Hautdesert
A joy to read
I first encountered Sir Gawain at school, and although the English was hard the underlying story fabulous to uncover. Read more
Published 21 months ago by sparky the hamster
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
A compelling and complex tale, beautifully rendered in modern English by Simon Armitage, and instantly accessible. Great stuff for all but the academic purist.
Published 23 months ago by BA Moore
ANGLO SAXON FOR EVERYONE
I READ THIS BOOK AT THE SAME TIME AS THE NEW TRANSLATION OF "BEOWULF".
I CAME TO BOTH "FRESH" AND AS A STRANGER AND WAS ENTHRALLED. Read more
I CAME TO BOTH "FRESH" AND AS A STRANGER AND WAS ENTHRALLED. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2010 by Mr. J. E. Thorpe
A joy to read
I had previously read this poem, as many of us have, as an English student crawling through the very difficult Middle English with the aid of a rather pedestrian prose translation. Read more
Published on 16 Dec 2009 by allwillbewell
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Having seen his program on this on TV recently, I was moved to buy the book! I have of course read this story before, albeit many years ago, but in a more prose form. Read more
Published on 6 Nov 2009 by A. J. White
the green knight
loved this poem, Simon Armitage`s translation is easy to read and rolls of the tongue whilst keeping to the spirit of the original.
Published on 9 July 2009 by Bev Chong
Great reading, a romp, and a rare delight / You'll love this tale of...
I knew of - rather than knew - this knight's tale
Of Gawain and the green man in his horrid green vale. Read more
Of Gawain and the green man in his horrid green vale. Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2009 by Mr. F. L. Dunkin Wedd
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
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.
|
