Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: in a Modern English Version with a Critical Introduction.

Harrison, Perry Neil

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: IN A MODERN ENGLISH VERSION WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. John Gardner. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2011. 203 p. 0226283283. $12.00.

AS This EDITION IS EQUAL PARTS critical introduction and translation, I have chosen to evaluate the merits and continued relevance of each separately. This translation is, of course, a reissuing of the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight material of Gardner's 1965 edition of The Complete Works of the Gawain Poet. This re-release raises obvious questions pertaining to the viability of reissuing this translation as a stand-alone work four decades after its initial publication. While the beautiful writing evident in this translation still provides a pleasurable reading experience, several oversights caused by the movement of the translation from a complete collection to a stand-alone edition, as well as the lack of a scholarly apparatus, make this book difficult to recommend for scholarly pursuits or classroom usage.

The editors devote a significant portion of this re-release to a lengthy critical introduction by the late Professor Gardner. Perhaps most readily notable is that, while this edition contains only the translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the critical introduction for this text is transplanted in its entirety from Gardner's Complete Works of the Gawain Poet. As such, in this introduction to a single poem, Gardner frequently makes reference not only to the titular work, but also to his translations of Pearl, Patience, and Purity. As a result of this editorial choice, a great deal of the introduction lacks context for readers without access to Gardner's older, more complete edition. The introduction itself serves as a quality, though somewhat dated, primer for readers who require a background in medieval literature or culture. While the information provided is similar to that presented in any introductory course on medieval texts, it would greatly assist readers who lack this background in gaining context for the poem. Of particular effectiveness in establishing this context is Gardner's choice to include a lengthy contrast between the unknown Gawain poet and Chaucer. Furthermore, since Gardner establishes his desire to situate his translation outside of ongoing scholarly debates, a great deal of potential anachronism is mitigated in this reissuing, though frequent references to the New Exegetes will likely cause, depending on the background of the reader, either a bemused chuckle or arched eyebrow. Overall, while showing some minor signs of age and severely hindered by the absence of the remaining works of the Gawain poet within the body of the text, this introduction serves well in providing a reader new to medieval texts the background needed to enjoy the Gawain poet's work.

Gardner presents his purpose for translating Gawain openly in the his Preface, asserting, "My object in translating and commenting on these poems has been to make generally accessible as much as I could of the technical ingenuity, the music, the narrative subtlety and vigor, the dramatic power, and the symbolic complexity to be found in the original Middle English" (vii). However, several omissions in the presentation and layout of the work prevent readers from being able to easily navigate and evaluate his translation's merits. While this translation of the poem is properly separated into its 101 stanzas, line numbers are notably absent from this edition. Furthermore, although the introduction to this edition contains copious endnotes and notations that help assist in situating it within the scholarship of its time of publication, the poem itself is strikingly lacking in authorial commentary. Because of this, it is difficult for a reader interested in uncovering the reasons behind Gardner's translational choices to properly appraise his editorial decisions. This is particularly disappointing to readers interested in translation theory, as Gardner makes much in his critical introduction of his philosophy of translating, and these claims could have been buttressed tremendously if he had included continuous annotations regarding their uses during the reality of translating. As such, the reader is deprived of potentially valuable commentary on the translation process. For these reasons, this release cannot be recommended to those seeking a translation of this poem for a classroom setting, nor to those who seeking to engage in serious scholarly endeavors.

However, it is the readability that Gardner sought to achieve that allows this particular translation to stand alongside those crafted by his contemporaries as well as later translations. The opening section detailing Britain's relation to Troy is of particular aesthetic appeal, and easily stands beside Borroff's rendition in its sheer poetic merit. Though it is easy to criticize this work for lacking the things that those accustomed to interacting with contemporary translations find commonplace, the sparseness of this edition does provide a valuable service--by removing the paratext typically associated with translations, Gardner's edition brings the beauty of the Gawain poet's story and writings to the fore. Coupled with its sheer ease of reading and accessibility, this allows for a surprisingly pleasant reading experience. While one searching for a translation for either scholarly pursuits or a classroom setting would do best choosing the translations provided by Marie Borroff, James Winny, or J.R.R. Tolkien, the accessibility of the critical introduction and the poetic quality of the translation would make this edition a welcome addition to the libraries of those with little background in medieval studies or for those predominately interested in reading the poem for pleasure. In this, even decades after the work's original publication, Gardner continues to succeed in his goal of making the work accessible.

PERRY NEIL HARRISON is a doctoral fellow in English at Baylor University, with a specialization in Medieval Studies and Anglo-Saxon language and culture. He received an MA in Literature from Abilene Christian University in 2010, and received training in Folklore Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His specific research interests include representations of the body and identity in medieval culture, Germanic linguistics and philology, and medieval outlaw ballads. His scholarship can be found in the 2013 volume of Medieval Perspectives and The Proceedings of the 2013 H.P. Lovecraft Emerging Scholarship Symposium.