Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

We nearly never had the magical medieval tale of Gawain and the Green Knight. Written in around 1401 by an anonymous northerner, the only manuscript to survive got lost for two centuries before resurfacing in 1839. Part ghost story, part thriller, part romance, and part morality tale, it tells of the challenge issued to Gawain at Arthur’s court by a wizard in the guise of a gigantic green-clad knight, of Gawain’s near seduction by his host’s wife just before he meets the Knight, and of how honesty and chivalric courtesy (just) save his head. New interest in it was aroused by the 1990 opera by Harrison Birtwhistle, but the bewitching music and pyrotechnical staging overwhelmed both poetry and plot. To enjoy it to the full, you need to hear it read aloud. Until now, there was only Terry Jones’s 1997 reading of J. R. R. Tolkein’s 1975 version, but  two new tellings have just been released: the poet Simon Armitage reading his own version and Jasper ‘Peak Practice” Britton reading Benedict Flynn’s. All three  are unabridged. So which should you go for? Fan as I am of both Tolkein and Jones in other contexts, their version runs a poor third. Tolkein’s love of scholarly correctness gets in the way of the subtle ebb and flow of the original lines, and Jones has much more of a lisp here than in his excellent Fairy Tales. Choosing between Armitage and Flynn is hard. Armitage is wittily modern and northern; Flynn respects, but is no slave to, the high language of romance. After the terrible Green Knight has picked up his head and gone, Armitage says ‘don’t be surprised if the plot turns pear-shaped’, while Flynn offers ‘no-one should wonder at [the game’s] weighty ending’. Both shrewdly strew it with alliteration, but differently: Flynn sheaves Gawain’s calves in shining grieves, Armitage has leg-guards lagging his flesh. The narrations also contrast. Armitage’s lackadaisical intoning made me lose concentration on occasion, but there is a poetic magic about it that fits the fitts featly. Britton goes at a much livelier pace with a fine dramatic sense. So I’m going to suggest that you do as I did: get them both, and listen to them alternately, scene by scene. It works like binoculars: you get a deeper understanding of the original, and magnify its intensity.

Christina Hardyment, The Times, 8 April 2008

A ‘horrid horseman’ in ‘vesture vivid green’ bursts into Christmas festivities at King Arthur’s court and challenges a knight to cut off his head. Sir Gawain does so – and a magical morality tale follows. The alliterative form of the 600-year-old original is brilliantly exploited by both translators and both readers are faithful to the text’s Middle English northern dialect. Armitage has the edge for sheer linguistic vigour, but his reading lacks variety of pitch and pace. Britton’s narration is punchier, capturing, for example, the coy, teasing tone of the seductress who tests Gawain’s chivalry, and the tension as he approaches the Green Chapel.

Rachel Redford, The Observer, 20 April 2008