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A review by ikon_biotin_jungle_lumen
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo by Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien, Unknown
5.0
What a gem! Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a marvelous work of poetry. As Tolkien commented, it is certainly a darker and more contemplative work than those of Chaucer (one of the few known contemporaries of the unknown author), but no less magnificent. In my estimation, Tolkien's mastery of the language surpasses all other modern renderings of Sir Gawain.
I have been largely unversed in alliterative poetry, to my discredit. It pounds at you with a sublime rhythm, harrowing the heaving heart. It's a refreshingly bold style filled with peril and grandeur, devoid of the sickening sweetness of other poetic schemes.
I did not expect the moral nature of Sir Gawain and the Green Knightâall other versions of this tale that I have encountered have downplayed or removed that aspect entire. The author plainly intended Gawain to be an symbolic type of Christ. I would have titled this work "The Temptations of Sir Gawain," which befits the moral tale more than the bewitched ogre so commonplace to heraldic mythology.
I have been largely unversed in alliterative poetry, to my discredit. It pounds at you with a sublime rhythm, harrowing the heaving heart. It's a refreshingly bold style filled with peril and grandeur, devoid of the sickening sweetness of other poetic schemes.
I did not expect the moral nature of Sir Gawain and the Green Knightâall other versions of this tale that I have encountered have downplayed or removed that aspect entire. The author plainly intended Gawain to be an symbolic type of Christ. I would have titled this work "The Temptations of Sir Gawain," which befits the moral tale more than the bewitched ogre so commonplace to heraldic mythology.