I first read this in 1975. I've read it several times since. The translation (Marie Borroff) is good. I am entirely taken in by the parallel structures in the story. Sir Gawain comes off as a wonderfully human character in a type of literature not known for well developed characters.

Sadakat, doğruluk, sözüne bağlı kalma gibi erdemlerin övüldüğü, okuması keyifli bir ortaçağ meseli. Yuvarlak masa şövalyesi denince daha hareketli bir şeyler bekliyordum ama Gawain'in yaşadığı en büyük zorluk kendisine kur yapan çekici bir kadına karşı koymaya çalışmak oldu. Bir de yeşil rengi doğaya bağlayan okumalar yapılıyormuş ama şiirde üç gün süren av partisinin en ince ayrıntılarıyla anlatıldığını düşününce pek anlamadım onu, ortaçağ İngiltere'sinin etik değerleri bugünden çok daha farklıdır mutlaka ama yine de tuhaf geldi.

Nazmi Ağıl'ın çevirisi çok akıcıydı, sanki orijinali de Türkçe yazılmış gibi keyifle okudum. Ancak metnin kendisi konusunda azıcık hayal kırıklığına uğradım galiba.

yazarı bilinmeyen 14. yydan kalma eser erdemli olmakla ilgili kısa bir kahramanın yolculuğu hikayesi. dili,kurgusu ve çevirisi gerçekten başarılı.

In the ten years since I first read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I’ve thought about it a lot. It was the first Arthurian work I read, long before I knew there was an enormous world of prior writings about Arthurian subjects. Reading it again, I have a new appreciation for some of its qualities I didn’t fully grasp on my first reading. I can place it in a broader context and understand its significance geographically and chronologically. My overall enjoyment was mostly unchanged, but I see things in it now I did not before.

It is preserved in only a single vellum manuscript from the late fourteenth century, in North Midland Middle English. Unlike the French and German Arthurian epic poems that came before, this one is close enough to modern English for an attempt to be made to translate it into verse. The translation by Brian Stone in the Penguin Classics version preserves the alliterative character of the original. Presenting it this way retains an appreciable amount of its traditional style.

It is a late medieval rendition of the beheading game, seen before in Celtic mythology with Cuchulain as the hero, and in the thirteenth century continuations of Perceval. At King Arthur’s Camelot Chrismastide celebration a hulking knight in green appears, requesting the boon of good sport be granted, that sport being a decapitation that puzzles and mystifies all of Arthur’s court. He challenges one to step forward, deliver the fiercest blow they can upon the knight, and to then await his repayment of that blow with one of his own in one year.

Gawain eventually accepts the challenge and decapitates the Green Knight. The knight’s head rolls away from his standing body, which then walks over to it and picks it up, and tells Gawain where to find him on one year, at his Green Chapel in a distant land, to receive his redemption. He leaves, and Arthur’s court resumes their celebration, albeit in a different mood than before, while Gawain contemplates his new obligation.

We see that this Knight of the Green Chapel is a supernatural figure of some sort, but more than that we do not know. Gawain is given fanfare and the finest of armors and weaponry to aid him on his adventure. Seen here and only here is Gawain bearing the pentangle on his shield, and a glorious tapestry of flashy decorations that show the grandeur with which legend has always associated him. Throughout the poem, Gawain’s trek across the lands receives detailed attention, as does his stay at a castle in a location thought by many to be a version of the Celtic Otherworld, indicated by the passage through water required to find it.

The poet glosses over many of the more daunting tribulations Gawain encounters, like his battles with wolves, dragons, wild men, ogres, but tells of his fights against starvation and the winter cold, and his difficulty with the extreme cliffs and crags and mountainous landscapes. Before his arrival at the castle, his adventure is perilous and one that might surely be his end.

It is at the castle that things take on a different tone. He and his horse Gringolet are taken in and given the finest of shelter and food and hospitality possible. The lord of the castle spares no expense for Gawain’s comfort. While the lord is out on his daily hunts, his wife makes advances toward Gawain that resemble the temptation motif encountered in past Arthurian literature. Gawain maintains his peerless character and integrity in repeated encounters with the lord’s wife, which will be a boon to him in the end.

The relevance of this castle, the lord, his wife, everything that Gawain encounters, and the Green Knight himself, are revealed in the striking final leg of the adventure. A tale of symbolism, legend, supernatural deception and trials, and courage ends up being more than it appears. It is a trial of character and spirit, an allusion to many possible ideas, and a work steeped in the lore and religious significance of obscure things.

Although the middle section seems to crawl in circles for a time, and the recurring scenes of the lord’s hunt seem an odd thing to focus on so eagerly for so long, the poem is a grand story. It is both visually and mystically powerful, a sort of puzzle one can appreciate at only the surface if they wish, or at layers further down, exploring a well of peculiarity. The Green Knight is an entity who is characterized in such a dynamic and unusual way that I can’t describe it any better than the translator does in his analysis:

“On his first appearance he is described successively as a terrifying giant, a handsome and well-built knight, a weirdly green and implicitly supernatural person, as excessively hairy like that common creature of popular mythology, the wild man of the woods, and as a mocking enchanter. And on his last appearance, besides these, he appears as a warm and sympathetic human being, an omniscient confessor who judges with accuracy and compassion, and above all with authority, and finally as a human, subtly diminished by the termination of his supernatural function.”

Gawain’s character is equally compelling, although here he is but a shadow of the Gawain we know from the longer works of French or German Arthurian tradition. In character he is unchanged, a paragon of the most highly valued knightly virtues, an unspoiled, steadfast hero who undertakes and accomplishes that which is set before him, no matter its risks. He is virtuous, patient, collected, gifted with moral clarity and higher purpose, but not immune to the passions and base human instincts. Where he excels and where he is wanting, the Knight of the Green Chapel seems to understand better than anyone.

behind every gay person (sir gawain) is a gayer more evil person (the green knight)

An uninvited guest (dressed in green) crashes the Christmas party at Camelot and proposes a crazy game. He says (I'm paraphrasing) chop my head off and in one year later let me chop your head off. So Sir Gawain chops his head off. The guy picks his head up off the ground, gets on his horse, and rides away.

Do I have your attention yet? It's heck of a way to begin the story. I wonder if Washington Irving got his idea for a headless horseman from this book.

So a year later Sir Gawain visits a castle on his way to meet the green knight. The king of the castle says (I'm paraphrasing) I'll leave the castle for the day and will leave you here alone with my wife. Implicitly, he can do anything he wants with the wife, and the wife's behavior is seductive. This happens three days in a row. Sir Gawain of course behaves properly, and only accepts a kiss.

So later when Sir Gawain meets the green knight he survives his blow. But Sir Gawain is embarrassed because he secretly carried a charmed sash from the king's wife.

So the point of the story? If you're pure (i.e. you don't yield to sexual temptation) you'll be magically protected from harm. Also, tell the truth (i.e. don't secretly carry a charmed sash).

Those people in medieval times had strange stories.

I actually can't believe how much I loved this! I was looking forward to it, but something about it just enchanted me entirely.

From the moment the hulking Green Knight rides into King Arthur’s Christmas banquet hall, axe in one hand, holly bough in the other, this tale has an eldritch, fey feeling — a haunting sense of otherworldliness. That haunted atmosphere is perfectly captured in Simon Armitage’s brilliant translation (from the original Middle English) of this late 14th century English poem. Armitage’s beautiful, descriptive poetry weaves a trance-like spell around this weird wonder tale that is far more powerful and evocative than the scholarly Tolkien translation that I read some forty years ago.

As for the tale, you could analyze it, attempt to delve its meaning and moral to its original 14th century audience. You could try to unweave its separate elements — Christian mythology, Welsh, Irish, and English folktales, pagan roots, French chivalric tradition. You could break it down using a modern feminist perspective, critiquing the trope of woman as temptress and the conniving Morgan le Fay as femme fatale villain. Or, like me, you could immerse yourself in this wonderfully weird and strange tale of quests, magic and illusion.

I’m not much of one for Arthurian tales, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is gripping.

Perhaps my favorite Arthurian classic so far. Loved the alliterative verse and the beautiful descriptions of seasons - the conflicting ideas centered on chivalry, courtship, religion, etc. all made the reading much more intellectually stimulating. Not to mention that the ending throws in a wedge that forces one to evaluate the overall theme of the poem, or whether a unifying theme exists at all. Highly recommended for those interested in British literature and for those who want to give it a try; it's much more bearable than Beowulf, and the seduction scene is one of my favorites.

One of the best of the 'classic' Arthurian tales. Gawain is presented a bit differently here from many of the other ones. Usually he's a bit of a braggart and kind of a jerk, especially to women, but here he is presented as the perfect exemplar of courtoisie. He's also a bit young and still untried, so maybe that explains it for those who want to be able to have a grand unified theory of Arthuriana.

Anyway, you probably all know the story: Arthur is about to have a New Year's feast, but according to tradition is waiting for some marvel to occur. Right on cue in trots the Green Knight on his horse, a giant of a man who proceeds to trash the reputation of the entire court and dare someone to cut off his head as long as he gets to return the favour. No one makes a move and Arthur decides he better do something about this until Gawain steps up and asks to take on this quest himself. Everyone agrees and Gawain proceeds to smite the green head from the Knight's body. Everyone is fairly pleased with the result until the Green Knight gets up, picks up his smiling head, and says: "See you next year, G. Don't forget that it's my turn then." (I paraphrase, the middle english of the poet is far superior.) Needless to say everyone is a bit nonplussed by this.

The year passes and Gawain doesn't seem to do much of anything until he finally decides it's time to get out and find this green fellow and fulfill his obligation...hopefully something will come up along the way to improve his prospects. What follows is a journey to the borders of the Otherworld as well as a detailed primer on just how one ought to act in order to follow the dictates of courtliness. Gawain ends up being the guest of Sir Bertilak, a generous knight who says that the Green Chapel, the destination of Gawain's quest, is close by and Gawain should stay with them for the duration of the holidays. We are treated to some coy (and mostly chaste) loveplay on the part of Bertilak's wife from which Gawain mostly manages to extricate himself without contravening the dictates of politeness, as well as the details of a medieval deer, boar and fox hunt with nary a point missing.

In the end Gawain goes to the chapel and finds that his erstwhile host Bertilak was in fact the Green Knight. Gawain submits himself and is left, after three swings, with only a scratch as a reward for his courteous behaviour in Bertilak's castle. Despite the apparent success of Gawain, he views the adventure as a failure since he did not come off completely unscathed and he wears a girdle he was gifted by Bertilak's wife as a mark of shame to remind himself of this. Harsh much?

The language of the Gawain poet's middle english is beautiful and I highly recommend reading it in the original with a good translation at hand to catch the nuances of meaning. The poem is replete with an almost dreamlike quality that is made real by all of the exquisite details of medieval life that are interspersed throughout the text. This is a great book to read at Christmas time.

I suppose I have a weakness for medieval literature. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as one of the earliest surviving works of English literature, is also a prime example of the virtues that the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table adhered to and the ideals to which they aspired. Simon Armitage’s brilliant translation breathes new life not only into the characters but also into the poetry itself.