From Publishers Weekly
Written down at least once in 1400 but probably composed earlier (and orally), this Middle English tale is rendered line-by-line, with the original en face, by the indefatigable Merwin. This approach allows the full flavor of the poem to come through as one goes back and forth between them: "Dele to me my destin‚, and do hit out of honde" becomes "Deal me my destiny, and do it out of hand." Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The first great story in English literature, Beowulf, is about fighting monsters--Grendel and his mother--and so is the next, the fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A gigantic green knight crashes Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a deathly pall over them and challenging one of the company to a duel. The virtuous Gawain accepts and, invited to put ax-blade to the thing's neck, decapitates it. Gushing blood, the knight picks up his noggin, tells Gawain to meet him in a year, and leaves. Next Yuletide, Gawain sets out. Nothing matches the horror of the opening scene, but the poem's ambiguous allegorical development, which no one has satisfactorily explicated during the 200 years since the manuscript was discovered, remains deliciously eerie. Following the example of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, Merwin's Sir Gawain replicates the propulsive alliteration and the rhymed-quatrain stanza endings of the original, and the translation appears face-to-face with the Middle English original. A major translation of a major English, and a major horror, classic. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Wonderfully readable…Merwin’s decades of experience as a translator and his poetic intuition give him an advantage here. His Gawain is a graceful read and, at the same time, remains as true as possible to the sense and style of the original…These are the kind of nuances that word-worshippers will linger over–but not before rushing through the story first to get to the good parts.”
–Sheila Farr, The Seattle Times

“Readers who enjoy a well-told story, not lacking in sex and violence but also endowed with a sense of moral purpose, will find a wonderful one here…Merwin’s translation has a directness and simplicity that can be quite powerful…Sir Gawain and the Green Knight endures–charming, strange, tantalizingly mysterious–and Merwin’s translation catches at least some of the gleam of its vanished world.”
–Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times

"Gawain remains, centuries after it was written, a poem of uncanny power. It has the tapestried richness of legend, but also an astonishing psychological complexity. Its lines are elegantly wrought, but they propel us through an adventure filled with erotic entanglements, dire challenges, and mysterious landscapes. Here is that rare poem with both the epic dimensions of ageless myth and the eerie intimacy of last night's dream. The clarity, ingenuity, and force of W. S. Merwin's translation will enable a new generation of readers to discover a remarkable masterpiece."
–J. D. McClatchy


From the Hardcover edition.

Review
?Wonderfully readable?Merwin?s decades of experience as a translator and his poetic intuition give him an advantage here. His Gawain is a graceful read and, at the same time, remains as true as possible to the sense and style of the original?These are the kind of nuances that word-worshippers will linger over?but not before rushing through the story first to get to the good parts.?
?Sheila Farr, The Seattle Times

?Readers who enjoy a well-told story, not lacking in sex and violence but also endowed with a sense of moral purpose, will find a wonderful one here?Merwin?s translation has a directness and simplicity that can be quite powerful?Sir Gawain and the Green Knight endures?charming, strange, tantalizingly mysterious?and Merwin?s translation catches at least some of the gleam of its vanished world.?
?Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times

"Gawain remains, centuries after it was written, a poem of uncanny power. It has the tapestried richness of legend, but also an astonishing psychological complexity. Its lines are elegantly wrought, but they propel us through an adventure filled with erotic entanglements, dire challenges, and mysterious landscapes. Here is that rare poem with both the epic dimensions of ageless myth and the eerie intimacy of last night's dream. The clarity, ingenuity, and force of W. S. Merwin's translation will enable a new generation of readers to discover a remarkable masterpiece."
?J. D. McClatchy


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER