“Marie Borroff’s translations of Middle English verse became legendary in her lifetime. She was an acclaimed critic, teacher, translator and poet, and pioneering female scholar at Yale, and her impeccable sense of rhythm infuses every choice in this translation. Read aloud, her words sing and declaim, transporting a modern reader into the vivid sounds and colours of medieval romance.” -Ardis Butterfield, Yale University
Marie Borroff’s acclaimed verse translation, marginal glosses, and explanatory footnotes.
Laura L. Howes’s full introduction along with Borroff’s seminal essay, “The Metrical Forms,” as well as her “Translator’s Note.”
For comparative study and classroom discussion, two French tales of Sir Gawain, four selections from the original Middle English poem, and a passage from the Alliterative Morte Arthure.
Nine critical essays on the poem’s central themes, four of them new to the Second Edition.
A chronology and a selected bibliography.
