Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

With Pearl and Sir Orfeo

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Christopher Tolkien, J R R Tolkien
Our Price:
NZ$ 22.99
Paperback
h198 x 129mm - 256pg
29 Apr 2021 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9780008433932
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
This smart new paperback edition contains the fully-reset text of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour. It features a beautifully decorated text and includes as a bonus the complete version of Tolkien' s acclaimed lecture on Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; but it is also much more than this, being at the same time a powerful moral tale which examines religious and social values. Pearl is apparently an elegy on the death of a child, a poem pervaded with a sense of great personal loss: but, like Gawain it is also a sophisticated and moving debate on much less tangible matters. Sir Orfeo is a slighter romance, belonging to an earlier and different tradition. It was a special favourite of Tolkien' s. The three translations represent the complete rhyme and alliterative schemes of the originals, and are uniquely accompanied with the complete text of Tolkien' s acclaimed 1953 W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture that he delivered on Sir Gawain.
' The introduction to Gawain is a little masterpiece. ' Times Higher Educational Supplement' This magnificent Arthurian tale of love, sex, honour, social tact, personal integrity and folk-magic is one of the greatest and most approachable narrative poems in the language. Tolkien' s version makes it come triumphantly alive, a moving and consoling elegy. ' Birmingham Post
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) was a distinguished academic, though he is best known for writing The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, plus other stories and essays. His books have been translated into over 60 languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide. Christopher Tolkien, born on 21 November 1924, is the third son of J. R. R. Tolkien. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot. At the end of the war he returned to Oxford University and became a Fellow and Tutor in English of New College in 1964, lecturing in the University on early English and northern literature. Appointed by J. R. R. Tolkien to be his literary executor, he has devoted himself since his father' s death in 1973 to the editing and publication of unpublished writings, notably The Silmarillion and Beowulf, and the collections entitled Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth. Since 1975 he has lived in France with his wife Baillie.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780008433932
Published: 29 Apr 2021
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Paperback
Height: 198mm
Width: 129mm
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 230g
Pages: 256

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