📚FEB 2026 Armitage's "Sir Gawain..." INTRODUCTION

In February we'll be reading Poet Laureate Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a thrilling and accessible translation of the great medieval Arthurian poem.

INTRODUCTION (this thread)
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
FINAL THOUGHTS

If your copy has an Introduction, here is where you can share your comments. Also, feel free to share any introductory comments or personal reading plans.

For those without a copy of their own, the complete Armitage's translation (without Introduction) is here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BzV3viBRyaBzN7AiPigaxc1H87tVgAk7nzanxF23nsE/...

BBC voice production available starring Sam West and Sir Ian McKellen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AS1jw9WtYg It is abridged but very well done.

I also recommend this video as a precursor to reading. It is helpful in understanding the significance of the poem, the history of the language, and how Armitage kept the same devices in the original poem such as alliteration/front rhyme and the fascinating technique "bob and wheel." It's an hour and half long but entertaining and educational. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJTIqV8K7tE

And for those that want a deep dive, listen to lecture by Armitage himself from the University of Oxford website. I HIGHLY recommend it. https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/damned-if-he-does-and-damned-if-he-doesnt-dilemmas-and...

I've just pulled my copy off the shelf.

>2 amanda4242: Excellent! Is there an Introduction?

>3 DebiCates: Yep, by Armitage.

>4 amanda4242: There isn't an Introduction in that document in the link above. I'll modify the description to state that.

>5 DebiCates: The document requires permission to access.

>6 amanda4242: It doesn't require it for me. But I'm logged into my google account (I stay logged in because I use it to access my daughter's location and she mine). Do you have a google account?

>7 DebiCates: Yes, I have one and I'm signed in. I don't need access since I already have a copy, but I thought I should give a heads up.

>8 amanda4242: I wonder if there is some limit to the number of users who can access it? I just closed it. Would you try again now?

>9 DebiCates: Still denied.

>10 amanda4242: Thanks Amanda. elenchus also is having trouble with it. It might be that an online option is not universally available for this title.

>11 DebiCates: The document owner would have to change the setting to allow everyone to see it.

>12 amanda4242: Wonder why I'm special? Weird.

I really love this translation! I have a hardback somewhere in my messy house, but I see that my library system has a bunch of copies so I placed a hold just in case. Worst case, I should be able to pick up a copy at the library next week.

Thanks for all of the links Debi!

(2 more links)

I have never read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, not by any translator, certainly not in the original. I have now the basic story (thanks to so much on YT about it by many various enthusiasts). What a tale! I very much look forward to this group reading. I have a zillion questions; they might be answered in the text or maybe fellow readers will have their own answers.

Here's a video that is just charming, where an old English gent is rather chuffed that he found a Folio edition in a used book shop during a recent trip to Wales. It's short, but in that time he shares some pages of illustrations and recites from the Armitage, from the Tolkien, and a bit from the original "Pearl" version. It's just fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_AlvpxOdKY

Just like the YT gent, I too am astounded that ONE copy was discovered, literally saved from a fire. It does make one wistfully wonder what else has been lost forever to time.

Here is another link (classic rabbit hole adventure) by a linocut illustrator (linocut is one of my own hobbies). He recounts the story of how the manuscript was preserved, and while doing so he shares an interesting tidbit about the source of the odd name for the manuscript, "Cotton Nero A.x." I love it. https://www.mythicalbritain.co.uk/post/2016/03/30/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knigh...

The link to poem in message #1 is now available to all with that link! And here it is again https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BzV3viBRyaBzN7AiPigaxc1H87tVgAk7nzanxF23nsE/...

Thanks to @amanda4242 for helping me figure it out.

>15 DebiCates: "It does make one wistfully wonder what else has been lost forever to time."

So glad that ONE copy was saved from the fire Debi! Unfortunately, I'm fearing that isn't so uncommon at different periods in history.

For example, it's incredible how tremendous an amount of Greek and Roman literature was lost for example. When I used to read more of those works, I would continually run across references to other works that we no longer have any copy of. And just googling now, it says that 90-99% of ancient Greek and Roman literature has been lost to us. So, of all of the wonders we have from those civilizations, we are only experiencing maybe 1-10% of what was originally out there. It boggles the mind!

>17 GregM3: That does boggle the mind! And I'm sure all those Romans and Greeks (and Persian, too) thought such a fate could never happen to their legacy.

Since I seem to be Debbie Downer these days (watching my country fall on its knees), I wonder what will happen in the future to modern time works.

I once saw a cartoon panel of an alien, with a destroyed NYC in the background, sitting on a monstrously tall stack of outdated, broken devices, reading a paper book. I guess I'm not the first to wonder what will happen.

>1 DebiCates: I'm in! Thought I had a copy right between The Faerie Queen and Song of Roland, but I cannot find it!

I might have it in an anthology; otherwise, I will just use the link sans introduction.

--Matt

Interesting, I just saw that there's a translation of this by W. S. Merwin as well. I'll still read the superb Armitage translation with the group, but I'm curious to see what Merwyn makes of it as well. I liked his Carrier of Ladders. I'm guessing his will be very different than the more traditional versions. Maybe I'll look for it later in the year.

>15 DebiCates: The copy I have is the Folio Society edition. It's a beautiful book, although HUGE and unwieldy. It doesn't fit in my bookcases and so has been living on top of them, lying down, patiently waiting to be taken down and read.... looks like the lucky day has just about arrived! :)

>20 GregM3: I love how little bits of coincidences pop up with readers. Just yesterday, during a book buying spree, I ordered my first Merwin, The Book of Fables.

I agree, it would be interesting to compare various translations, even compare with the original if one gets really into it. Funny characters in it, though.

Did you know the bit about the "Y" character in Middle English is supposed to sound "th"? So "Ye Ol' Lion's Head" should really sound like "The" Ol' Lion's head! I had no idea.

>21 TonjaE: Is that the 2008 Folio Edition Tonja? It looks beautiful in photos with the lithographs. Or maybe it's one of the earlier editions?

>21 TonjaE: Oh, that big boy has been waiting patiently, hasn't he? I just now imagined you reading it. It will be like when you were a just little girl, holding a book that was outsized for you.

What a sweet image.

It has those gorgeous illustrations in it, too. Lucky you.

>24 DebiCates: I think he has been very patient and I am going to feel just how you said reading it. I can post photos of the illustrations in it as we go if you like?

>22 DebiCates: "Did you know the bit about the "Y" character in Middle English is supposed to sound "th"? So "Ye Ol' Lion's Head" should really sound like "The" Ol' Lion's head! I had no idea."

I had no idea either! Way back in college, there were some parts about reciting Middle English, but I was young and only did the minimum necessary for that part. I did enjoy reading works in Middle English, as long as there were copious footnotes for the unrecognizable words. I haven't yet run across a translation of Canterbury Tales that I like better than a footnoted copy of the original Middle English version. Probably there is one I would like, just unknown to me.

But Sir Gawain has some great translations!

>25 TonjaE: If you can, I would LOVE that Tonja! It really does look beautiful!

>25 TonjaE: Oh, I would love that, and I'm sure others would too! We can all be little kids at heart with you.

>26 GregM3: But Sir Gawain has some great translations!

I'd say that all those translators of Sir Gawain also haven't found a translation they like as much as the original either...thus they all have to give it a try. ha

>20 GregM3: Armitage mentioned the Merwyn translation in his lecture linked above, and I noted it as Merwyn is a name I recognise, but as yet don't know well. I have a Library of America edition of his work on my shelf. It includes Carrier of Ladders.

That Armitage lecture was a good primer. I'll be reading from the Google doc (thank you, @DebiCates !) and hope to follow up on that BBC audio presentation.

>30 elenchus: That's interesting elenchus that Armitage mentioned it. Makes me even more curious! Merwin's poetry is hard to describe, but I find it moving. To me, it feels a bit mythic and spiritual in a non-religious way.

One of the poems in Carriers has the lines:

"even there a shining is flowing from all the stones
though the eyes are not yet made that can see it.

His poetry feels to me like an attempt to make himself those sort of eyes, if that makes sense?

I wasn't too fond of the one book of fiction I read by him, but I've liked all the books of poetry by him that I've picked up.

>31 GregM3: I'm even more keen for that Merwin book to arrive now. Although I confess I was already pretty darn keen based on this incredibly glowing blurb about it, The Book of Fables:

"Metaphors, puns, surrealist visions, converted into sharp, disturbing little narratives ... only a poet, and a good one, could have written it."-The Atlantic Monthly. W.S. Merwin's acclaimed short prose--many of which first appeared in The New Yorker--blur the distinction between fiction, poetry, essay, and memoir. Reminiscent of Kafka, Borges, and Beckett, they evoke mythical patterns and unlikely adventures and raise questions about art, reality, and meaning. As the Saturday Review remarked, they have "astonishing range and power." The Book of Fables is a collection of all the short prose from two out-of-print collections, The Miner's Pale Children and Houses and Travellers. The pieces run from a single sentence to a dozen pages and create a poetic landscape both severe and sensuous.

>31 GregM3: I really dig this that you shared:

"even there a shining is flowing from all the stones
though the eyes are not yet made that can see it.

>32 DebiCates: Looking forward to hearing what you think once you've read it! I've never read any of those books of short prose by him!

The cover illustration on 2008 Folio Society edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Simon Armitage translation).

This edition contains an introduction by Simon Armitage, in which he suggests reading the poem aloud for full effect as well as the unknown authors penchant for bending the rules of poetry. The illustrations are by Dianna Sudyka.

Frontis - "In all vestments he revealed himself veritably verdant!"

>35 TonjaE: >36 TonjaE: 😍 Illustrations! Adding to the enchantment. Big thank you, Tonja!!

>36 TonjaE: Lovely!! Thanks Tonja!

>37 DebiCates: >38 GregM3: my pleasure, happy to share them.

Agreed! Appreciate having the illustrations here.

I've started the second of two podcasts linked in the OP, and though it wasn't my deliberate decision, think now I will finish those before embarking on a read of the poem itself. So I'm still pedaling away in this INTRODUCTION section, but I'll catch up, fare thee well, all!

>40 elenchus: Godspeed. Return when you can. We'll be here at Castle LibraryThing.

Debi, kind of funny; my copy has this blurb on the back by none other than Seamus Heaney himself!

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

That made me smile, thinking of the "green fuse" from that Dylan Thomas poem you posted last week. Who would've thought I would have run across two mentions of green fuses in a matter of a week!

>42 GregM3: I love when stuff like that happens! It made me smile, too. Thank you for sharing it.