April 26, 2024—Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The next meeting of Great Books KC will be April 26, 2024.         

We will discuss Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by Anonymous.  

Meeting Date & Time:
Date: April 26, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm

 Hybrid Zoom/In-Person Meeting:
— Attendance in person Plaza Branch Lib., Small Meeting Room.
— Zoom attendance, link sent to mailing list.
— Request mailing list addition, send to GreatBooksKC@gmail.com

About the Book:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game, and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess.

Translations (Recommendations by Bernard Norcott-Mahany):

Simon Armitage, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Marie Boroff.  

There are audiobooks of the Armitage translation and of the Tolkien (read by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame).  The Armitage audiobook also has the Middle English text as well, so you can get a better sense of how the work might have sounded.