Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Well, National Poetry Month is over and attention has turned to other celebrations (National Preservation Month, National High Blood Pressure Month...). But this space is devoted to poetry 12 months a year. At least it is when we aren't swooning over our favorite troubadours. So even though the cameras may have gone elsewhere, here at A Sweet Unrest World Headquarters I've slipped into a new party dress, opened another bottle of Champagne and kept right on celebrating poetry.

This weekend I read Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This is exactly the kind of book I would have avoided in the past, under the assumption that I wouldn't get it. And I'll admit that when I cracked it open, ignoring the introduction and rushing headlong onto the first page of the poem, I thought my old assumptions were right. I was halfway down the first page thinking, 'if this is the translation, what the hell does the original look like??' when I realized that it's a parallel text and the original is on the left side of the page and the translation is on the right. Embarrassing but all too true. Once I got that sorted though, it was smooth sailing. The translation is very accessible- you don't need any notes or background at all to figure out what's going on. And Armitage kept to the highly alliterative style of the original, which makes the words and lines themselves pure pleasure to read. The poem is entertaining and suspenseful and just a really good tale. It's one I'll return to.

I'd never heard of Simon Armitage before reading about this book, but now that he's on my radar I see his name everywhere- he's over here breaking down the genius that is The Smiths' This Charming Man, he's over there turning The Odyssey into a radio play for BBC and then publishing his version in book form. I will definitely follow him as he is also interested in both poetry and pop music. I'm not the only one! I look forward to reading his version of The Odyssey as well as some of his own poetry.

In the meantime, this was the first Arthurian tale I'd ever read (so many humiliating disclosures in one post) and I'd like to read more. Any recommendations for me?

Comments

[Melissa Donovan]

In college I took a class on early British literature. We had to read this and several other Arthurian works and I loved Sir Gawain especially. In fact, I was surprised that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight weren't enjoying the fame of say, Lancelot, who was actually kind of shady when you think about it.

[Eiron Page]

I have to profess a dislike towards the work of Simon Armitage, having read a fair deal of his work, composed a piece of music based on his Cataract Operation and heard him talk about his poetry both on TV and in person. I did, on the other hand, enjoy 'Sir Gawain' (not just because of the fact it earned me my first First-level grade at university), though there is at least one terrible film adaptation of it that is probably best avoided.

[Greer]

Hi Melissa, that sounds like an interesting class. I feel like all I did in college lit is read The Great Gatsby... I swear that between high school and college I studied that one about 7 times :-).

Eiron, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. If you have the time and inclination, I'd love to hear what you don't like about Armitage's work. I plan on reading his 'Odyssey' and a collection of his that came out over here called 'The Shout.' This may shock some people, but I've actually read 'The Odyssey' before so I feel like I'll have some frame of reference for that one!

[Eiron Page]

I am not sure from where the dislike arises. I don't know whether the poetry we were given to study was a bad bunch, or whether I just saw it at the wrong time but it just sat badly with me. I don't approach poetry with a mind to disliking it - on the contrary I have written a little myself and participated in a multi-award winning poetry event hosted in my old student house but I do enjoy the particularly experimental and left field. The works on my shelf include e.e. cummings' no thanks and Mark Z. Danielewski's two poetic works: Only Revolutions; and The Fifty Year Sword. Maybe I need to give it another go, but I read some of his version of Sir Gawain back in one of my bookshop jobs (shortly after it came out) and I just found it didn't work for me.

The first version of Antigone I bought was similarly unpalatable (actually worse - the translator opted on a semi-modernised style which included the worst clichéd Cockney-sounding guard that sat with the rest of the characters like a hog roast at a Bar Mitzvah. His presence actually offended me and ruined my enjoyment of the text. I had to seek a more classical translation to appreciate it.

It is probably merely a preference thing. I struggled through Sir Gawain in the original Middle English because I had to write a presentation on it and the application of language was to be a key part of my discussion.

However, give me a good starting point to retry Armitage and I'll take you up on it. I don't like to write things off completely. All my opinions are based on individual experience. I tend not to see the complete body of work by an artist as perfect unless the individual items are, which is decidedly uncommon.

[Greer]

Eiron, I'm really impressed you got through Sir Gawain in the original language. You don't need anyone's translation! I liked how Armitage translated it but even so there were a couple words here and there that did kind of pull me out of the story for a second. I would have to go back and find exactly where but there was one time he used 'fabulous' for something and I immediately thought of one of those makeover shows on TV. But maybe that's just me ;).

Anyway, I'll report back if any of Armitage's own poetry stands out once I've read it. And I'm adding Danielewski to my list of poets to check out.

Thanks again for commenting, it's fun to read other opinions and discuss.

[Eiron Page]

Danielewski's describes his work as "novels", which harks back to its original usage in the early days of literature: the "new". So his poetic works are novels. His masterpiece really is "House of Leaves" which is one of the books that is described as "life-changing" - it is a gothic horror set in the video age. It is not for everybody, but those who it is for are very into it. There are dedicated forums to close readers of the book and calls for it to become "canonised" into university courses. Similar to this is Steven Hall's 'The Raw Shark Texts' and, most recently - if the reviews I've read are true (I am excitedly awaiting my own copy presently) - Jack O'Connell's 'The Resurrectionist'.

Danielewski's 'Only Revolutions', to me, was reminiscent of epic pastoral poetry, possibly because I had, upon picking it up, recently managed to bring myself to read through to the end Wordworth's Prelude - something I hadn't succeeded with when it came up on my course. I suddenly became no longer on of those who had Not Read The Prelude (distinction to be drawn from those who just haven't read it) and became one who has. It is, besides this, an allegorical road-trip cum coming-of-age story with so many layers it is impossible to cover them all in a comment.

Should you be interested in reading 'The Fifty Year Sword' you may find it difficult to get hold of a copy. I found mine by going to the Dutch shop bol.com. It seems the Netherlands got more of a[n English-language] release than any of the traditionally English-speaking countries.

[Greer]

Hi Eiron, I'm sorry it took me so long to write back but I wanted to look into some of the things you wrote about. My local library has a copy of 'House of Leaves' so I think I'll start there for Danielewski. I'm next in line when a copy is returned.

Funny that you mentioned The Prelude, I recently received a copy as a gift but I haven't started it yet as I have quite a few books in progress right now. Now of course your comment has made me anxious to dive into that one as well.