Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage (English) Paperback Book

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"Compulsively readable. ... Simon Armitage has given us an energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version."-Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

One of the founding stories of English literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight narrates the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse who rudely interrupts Camelot's 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. The following Yuletide, Gawain dutifully sets forth. His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dreamlike castle, a dire challenge answered—and a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing. Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, this Arthurian epic was rediscovered only two hundred years ago and published for the first time in 1839. Following in the tradition of Ted Hughes, Marie Borroff, and J.R.R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage—one of England's leading poets—has produced an inventive translation that resounds with both clarity and spirit. His work, presented here with facing original text and a note by Harvard scholar James Simpson, is meticulously responsible to the sophistication of the original but succeeds equally in its ambition to be read as a totally new poem. It is as if two poets, six hundred years apart, set out on a journey through the same mesmerizing landscapes—acoustic, physical, and metaphorical—to share in and double the pleasure of this enchanting classic.

Author Biography

Simon Armitage is an award-winning poet who has published ten volumes of poetry and translations of both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Death of King Arthur. He is professor of poetry at the University of Sheffield, England.

Review

"Drives the force of the old poem through the green Armitrage fuse. Highly charged work." -- Seamus Heany, Nobel Prize-winning translator of Beowulf"Simon Armitrage's luscious version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight continues the tradition of great poet-translators such as Edward FitzGerald, Arthur Waley, and Seamus Heaney. Like them, he has taken an artifact from a remote era and made it his own, while simultaneously restoring it to itself." -- John Ashbery"Brilliantly orchestrated.... Armitrage has produced a brilliantly well-tuned modern score for one of the finest surviving examples of Middle English poetry." -- Poetry Review"[Armitrage's] version inventively recreates the original's gnarled, hypnotic muscle, its vivid tableaux and landscapes, its weird, unsettling drama." -- Mark Ford - Financial Times"A free and wonderfully offbeat version of this unusual masterpiece... fresh and startling, as though it had been written yesterday; it is rough-knuckled and yet it sings.... From start to finish, Mr. Armitrage has clearly had great fun; each of his words has been tasted with gusto." -- Eric Ormsby - New York Sun"Full of make-believe and festivity, this wonderful narrative poem possesses a Mozartean lightness and wit. Luckily, several modern versions, particularly those by W.S. Merwin and Simon Armitrage, deftly replicate much of the feel and rhythm of the Middle English original." -- Michael Dirda - Wall Street Journal"I enjoyed it greatly for its kick and music; its high spirits, its many memorable passages. I enjoyed it because, like the Gawain poet, Armitrage is some storyteller." -- Kevin Crossley-Holland - The Guardian"Armitrage makes it utterly, even compulsively readable, and as fresh as it must have been in 1400." -- Brian Morton - Sunday Herald

Long Description

The classic story that inspired the film starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander "A medieval romance...but also an outlandish ghost story, a gripping morality tale and a weird thriller.... I couldn't put down Simon Armitage's compulsively readable...energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version." -- Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review

Review Text

"Drives the force of the old poem through the green Armitrage fuse. Highly charged work."

Review Quote

"Simon Armitrage's luscious version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight continues the tradition of great poet-translators such as Edward FitzGerald, Arthur Waley, and Seamus Heaney. Like them, he has taken an artifact from a remote era and made it his own, while simultaneously restoring it to itself."

Details ISBN0393334155 Author Simon Armitage Short Title SIR GAWAIN & THE GREEN KNIGHT Language English ISBN-10 0393334155 ISBN-13 9780393334159 Media Book Format Paperback Residence Holmfirth, ENK Birth 1963 DOI 10.1604/9780393334159 UK Release Date 2009-01-29 Imprint WW Norton & Co Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2009-01-29 NZ Release Date 2009-01-29 US Release Date 2009-01-29 Death 1939 Affiliation Oxford Position Curatorial Assistant Qualifications Ph.D. Pages 208 Publisher WW Norton & Co Edition Description A New Verse Translation Year 2009 Publication Date 2009-01-29 DEWEY 821.914 Illustrations 2 illustrations Audience General We've got this

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