Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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“A dazzling recreation of the most memorable Middle English poem, and one that captures the original alliterative verse in all its dimensions: sense, sound, and rhythm.”
      —Ad Putter, Professor of Medieval English Literature, University of Bristol

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All I crave from this court is a gay Christmas game,
For it’s Yuletide and New Year and brave youths abound here.
If one of your house holds himself truly hardy,
So brazen of blood and so bold in his brain,
That he dare strike a stroke and stand still for another,
I shall hand him my axe, this hard piece of war-work—
And right handsome its heft—to use as he will;
And I’ll bide the first blow, as bare as I sit.
If some man is minded to try what I mean,
Let him come to me quickly and catch up this weapon.
I quitclaim it forever. He may hold it his own.
I’ll suffer his stroke, lord, here on these stones
If you grant me your grace to give him another
                    as I may;
    And I’ll offer him reprieve—
    A twelvemonth and a day.
    Now quickly, by your leave,
    Has any aught to say? 

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“Accurate, poetic, and masterly, Joseph Glaser’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight captures and replicates with brio the craftsmanship of the English romancer known as the Gawain-poet. A brilliant Introduction by medievalist and romance expert Christine Chism invites readers’ engagement with the text in addition to presenting reliable and up-to-date scholarly information about the work, its anonymous author, and its historical milieu. A finely executed and thought-provoking undergraduate edition of this medieval masterpiece.”
      —Jordi Sánchez-Martí, Department of English Philology, University of Alicante

"[A] great book of really useful introductory material appropriately pitched for undergraduates."
      —Gina Brandolino, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

"The course I teach centers around the figure of the hero in western literary tradition, and in a one-semester seminar we cover the ground from Homer's Iliad until Milton's Samson Agonistes. The Gawain poem is an ideal bridge between the classical world and the early modern world. I have used the Tolkien translation for years because many students who take the course are familiar with Tolkien's fiction, and the cachet of the Tolkien name can make the prospect of reading an obscure Middle English Arthurian poem seem more palatable. The trouble is that Tolkien's translation is often crabbed and old-fashioned, and in places overly interpretive.
     "I have now read Joseph Glaser's translation a number of times, and I've found a new text for the class. In fact, as my students struggled with the Tolkien translation in class this fall, I was using the Glaser text, and when I quoted the text in Glaser's translation, several students gave me grief for having assigned them the Tolkien version. Everyone preferred the Glaser translation, and we even devoted some class time to careful comparison of selected stanzas. I explained that when I selected the texts for the class, I didn't know about the Glaser edition; and the students seemed somewhat placated when I assured them that I would be selecting the Glaser edition in the future.
     "In addition to the lively alliterative lines, Glaser's translation is more faithful to the original text, and it reads much more easily. His Translator's Preface does a wonderful job of illustrating what's at stake in translating this very artful poem, and Christine Chism's Introduction explains what we know about the poet and his circumstances, and clearly unpacks the background and structure of the poem. Both will be useful to the inquisitive student."
      —Peter Losin, Senior Lecturer in University Honors, University of Maryland, College Park

"Nicely fills the gap between overly technical scholarly editions and too-simplified student editions. The translation and overview provide a solid introduction to the Middle English masterpiece and assures that future readers will be as willing as Glaser has been to devote the time and energy necessary to explore the poem's many facets. A worthy effort to bring the complex poem to modern students."
      —Ryan Naughton, Ohio University, in The Medieval Review

"One of the greatest strengths of the volume is the introduction by Christine Chism. Its language is both accessible and eloquent; the concepts she explains are sophisticated. In it, she contextualizes the poem in terms of both its literary and critical reception and introduces readers to the cultural and political climate of fourteenth-century England. Further sections suggest possible directions for undergraduate research and gesture toward contemporary scholarship on the poem.
    "Also to be lauded are the translator's preface (in which Glaser reflects candidly about the challenges of translation and the difficult choices such a task requires) and, wonderfully, the translation itself. It is both accurate and evocative. . . . Glaser's translation succeeds in rendering both formal elements of the poem in modern English, while faithfully conveying the sense of the original lines.
    "The most innovative element of Glaser's approach to his translation is his emphasis on the poem's east Cheshire dialect, arguing that its translation "must contain a relatively high portion of chewy Old English or Norse terms" (xliv).
   "Glaser's audience is not the popular one dazzled by Heaney or by Simon Armitage's recent translation of the same poem. The language of his Preface, as well as of the notes that accompany the text, is arrestingly colloquial and unapologetically didactic. Glaser's audience is one who lacks familiarity with Arthurian legend and the tropes of medieval romance."
    —Megan Stein, Department of English, University of California, Riverside, in Comitatus

About the Authors:

Joseph Glaser is Professor Emeritus of English, Western Kentucky University. His Canterbury Tales in Modern Verse and Middle English Poetry in Modern Verse are also published by Hackett.

Christine Chism is Associate Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles.