December 19, 2007

Sir Gawain Gets a Facelift

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the seminal poems of English literature. This little known Christmas story was once translated by J.R.R. Tolkien. But it has always been somewhat inaccessible due to the 14th century English it is written in. An "energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version" by Simon Armitage is now available according to this NY Times article.

Beyond your experience with the work, what is your opinion on "readable" translations of such works? (Beowulf, anyone?). Does such a translation help or harm the work?

Posted by John on December 19, 2007 03:46 PM | Posted to Fantasy | Literature and Language
Share: Add to Digg Add to Del.icio.us Google Add to Ma.gnolia Add to StumbleUpon Add to Reddit Add to Spurl Add to Technorati
Comments

I have a translation of Le Morte d'Arthur where all the translator did was modernize the spelling (somewhat--he kept recognizable words like "damosel" the way they were). You still had terms like "wot ye well" and "wonderly wroth" that you had to figure out. I found it much more in the mood of the book for Pendragon to be "wonderly wroth" than if he merely got "really mad".

I also have a copy of Beowulf that I got about 10 years ago that I want to reread before watching the movie (we always watch DVD). Maybe once I reread it I'll do a post on it at Fantasy Debut.

Posted by: Tia on December 20, 2007 06:16 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?






Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://covblogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/11420

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Sir Gawain Gets a Facelift: