/lit/ - Literature

Gawain and the Green Knight is kino, but if you haven't read it before, you should just start with a modern english translation.

>>15024702
You might want to read it out loud to hear how the words sound. This will make figuring out what they're saying much easier.

Get a middle english dictionary. Middle english isn't very hard to read but there'll be words you don't know

>>15024702
Read some Chaucer beforehand, to get used to Middle English.

>>15024702
The tolkien edition has a good glossary and appendix. I started middle english with gawain and the green knight, i wouldnt recommend it but if you insist i recommend taking it slow and getting familiar with your glossary.

>>15024702
Any good edition will have translations of difficult words, so a middle english dictionary isn't wholly necessary. That being said, even a scholarly edition will have disputed translations and errors; the Riverside Chaucer for example has many questionable translations. The Gutenberg Middle English Dictionary is an online resource which could help if you think a translation is iffy, though there are others that a quick Google search could reveal.

Any good edition will also have an introduction and foreword to the poem, which i would highly recommend you read beforehand. The hardest thing about the Gawain poet is not always the language, but the alliterative metre. Remember that it is a poem, not a novel, and a poem which furthermore does not operate in the same ways as modern poetry does. This is something that will always be entirely lost in a modern translation, so i wouldn't recommend starting with one, though it may be useful as a supplement. The edition we used at Cambridge was the 2014 Penguin Classics 'The Works of the Gawain Poet'. Another book you may find helpful is 'The Clerkly Maker: Langland’s Poetic Art'. As you can guess it discusses Piers Plowman, though i found it useful for looking at the Gawain Poet too. It's a pain in the neck to find though.

This being said, the pronunciation may well be a struggle. The suggested reading aloud often helps. If you are a native English speaker, you may also do well to think about the regional dialect of the Gawain poet (who was from the north or midlands if i remember correctly) which can help decipher some words, though don't worry if you're American or Australian or something. There are recordings online of audiobooks in the original dialect which could help you familiarise yourself with the language too. Again any good edition will have an introduction explaining the dialect and inflections. I found that just by reading it starts to come naturally very quickly, so don't worry if it seems daunting.

Middle English isn't actually very hard. I think this rumour is spread by people who just dove straight into the text. Buy a good edition, read the introduction, and you should be fine. You don't really need anything else if you're just reading for pleasure or mild understanding.

>>15024765
I just did the quick Chaucer tutorial that is the first result on google and I seem to be able to pick up around 80% of the meaning fairly easily, however when I try to read Gawain it seems much more difficult and I only grasp around 30%. Chaucer must be more recent or easier? Any advice from this point on?
>>15024936
Thanks that’s very helpful, I’ll pick up that edition if I can find it.

>>15024981
Am >>15024765
The reason I recommended him is because Chaucer is the easiest Middle English author by far. On a second thought, though, diving into the Gawain Poet with the Penguin version this (>>15024936) anon recommended might be a better choice. That version has a lot of contextual info besides the annotated vocabulary, so it might be the best overall choice.

>>15025057
Ok it looks like that is what I’ll do. I have a grasp of the pronunciation now from the tutorial online and I’ll get that recommended edition, hopefully it will will be enough with a dictionary to help, it’s only like 60 pages anyway. Thanks thread

>>15024702
Chaucer is an easier starting point for ME.
The main challenge for a native English speaker is getting the pronunciation down, after that's it's actually quite easy and enjoyable to read ME.
I highly recommend reading pic related.
It's a good intro and explanation of ME, including a dictionary by JRR Tolkien himself.
IMO, the works of the Gawain poet are far superior to Chaucer, so well worth putting the effort into.

>>15024702
Though the ME is the superior version, Tolkien's translation is actually excellent.
>>>/pol/252065409
It preserves the aliteration and meter very well.

>>15024981
Chaucer and the Gawain poet were most likely contemporaries of eachother.
But while Chaucer was writing in the more French-influenced dialect of Southern England, the Gawain poet is writing in the more Germanic-influenced dialect of the Midlands, so there are some big noticable differences to a modern-English reader.
Also, the Gawain poet is generally more sophisticated and metaphoric than Chaucer, so you have that to grasp as well as the language itself.
I imagine it's actually quite difficult for somebody with little or no education in Christian theology.

>>15025367
wrong link woops
http://jessicasladechms.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/7/4/51740093/sir_gawain_complete_large_text.pdf

>>15024727
This. Do what you would with Chaucer: grab a good edition with glossed vocabulary on the same page (TEAMS, for instance), speak out loud to get the pronunciation closer to modern English phonetically (don't worry about authentic medieval pronunciation at all--the point is to help your brain get the corresponding modern word), and enjoy! Even that weird Midlands dialect isn't so hard when you get used to it.

>>15025428
the TEAMS books in general are great. read them online for free if you want, but i bought the physical copy of the Robin Hood ballads, comfy read.

>>15025473
I have it too--couldn't resist, and it's huge!

>>15025389
I’m still barely done with the Greeks and Romans, I haven’t even started on the Christians yet. Hopefully I’ll have enough through cultural osmosis to grasp enough