Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / Pearl / Sir Orfeo by unknown

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

The David Lowry movie adaptation was my first overall exposure to this story and such a shame that my first literary exposure to it seemed aesthetically and thematically uninteresting. Not to mention that the reading experience of the Tolkien retelling is encumbered by absolutely boring writing that devotes long stretches of verse to articulating irrelevant story elements like the merriment with which Gawain was kept his first few days at the lord’s castle, while spending very little real estate on the gravity and meaning of the green knight to Gawain as he journeys to him.

0 0 Reply

JuJuBeans1

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Wow. Just, wow.
When I was younger, once, I tried reading the original text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, untranslated, and soon despaired of the incomprehensible language, though to ears it was as lovely as poetry from another world. A Christmas party. King Arthur refusing to eat "until he had heard of some marvel or story, or witness some great feat" and Guinevere sitting beside. That was when I stopped. Oh, what adventure did I miss! And yet, I was not old enough for this tale yet.
For this is a fairy tale for adults, and so is the poem titled Pearl, and so is Sir Orfeo.
For a class on the Medieval Period, I got the pleasure of taking this little book off my shelves once again and delving into the mysteries lying there within.
This particular book contains J R R Tolkien's own translations of the three works mentioned above. And he does a splendid job of recreating the language in English - although it is a wonder to accompany it with a hearing of the original sounds of Middle English.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur's nephew, Gawain, is challenged to a fateful fight and must undertake a journey in one year's time to seek out the Green Knight who disturbed the Christmas party at the beginning, just after the place I had first stopped reading.
There is much more, but that is all I shall say for this tale.

Pearl is a tragic poem about a man mourning the loss of his daughter who meets her grown up in a dream of heaven that he has. It is a skillfully written poem of 1212 lines with 12-line stanzas, mirroring the twelve gemstones of heaven and the twelve gates. Revelations is referenced and also are words that Jesus said in the gospels referenced.

Sir Orfeo reminds me of C S Lewis' book the Silver Chair a little bit, and it also is very similar to the Greek tale Eurydice with the exception that this story has a happy ending. This one is very like a fairy tale.

I would recommend reading it aloud in small pieces, to yourself or to someone who likes poetry, or listening to a recording of someone reading it aloud.

0 0 Reply

chrissy_poo_too

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

My favorite poem from this wonderful book was Sir Orfeo. What an amazing philologist J.R.R.Tolkien was!

0 0 Reply

Jeeshan

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I really enjoyed going back to this work since college. It’s a fun story told through alliterative verse. Tolkien’s into is very helpful too.

0 0 Reply

DBX

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Reading an anonymous author makes me uncomfortably aware of how I'll never truly understand the past. Without an author to call upon, a name to whisper, how do we approach these poems? As sentences that never existed and then suddenly did?

I'm writing a review on the Internet of a book I read on my laptop based on material from a single surviving manuscript by an unknown author who lived 700 years ago and would not even understand the language their work has been translated into, let alone the world it exists in.

And yet, not all hope is lost. We know incredibly little about the Gawain Poet's life, and they know absolutely nothing of ours - but somehow we can still share the poetry. Across time and space, we'll always have poetry.

So yes, reading an anonymous work makes me uncomfortable, as does rating 14th-century literature. But, alliterative revival makes me happy, as does Orpheus, so this was an enjoyable read.

0 0 Reply

Singulariity

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

4.5 ★ — I think this is one of the most accesible english / arthurian poems out there. A really nice start if you want to keep reading this type of stuff. Might reread this every year and i’ll try to make a Christmas tradition or something similar, because I know i’m going to miss Gawain. Although I hope that on my next read I have more time and analyse everything a little bit better so I can understand more things than on my first read.

Tolkien’s translation wasn’t my cup of tea to be honest, If you’re planning to read this I would recommend Simon Armitage’s one (only if you’re a newbie reading this type of literature).

0 0 Reply