In 2021 I, and the rest of the world I think, got a little bit (or quite a lot) obsessed with Dev Patel in The Green Knight. It was a stunning and intriguing adaptation of a crucial medieval piece of Middle English poetry and while not everyone liked what A24 did with the text, I loved it. And in that rush of all things Gawain, I also requested this translation, or perhaps, edition, of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While it took me some time to get around to it, it brought up loads of thoughts so this is a long review. Thanks to Dark Moon Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay!

First, some background! Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem written in the late 14th-century. It falls within the chivalric romance genre and is written in a North West Midlands dialect of Middle English. It only survives in a single manuscript and is written in an alliterative form which follows a "bob and wheel" rhyming scheme which gives the poem a great sound when read aloud. The poem tells the tale of young Gawain, a young man at Arthur's court, who takes up the challenge of a Green Knight who appears in Camelot on New Year's Eve. The challenge? Gawain may strike the Green Knight with the latter's axe now, but must accept a similar blow in a year and a day's time. Gawain cuts off his head, but the Green Knight picks up his head, repeats the appointment for in a year's time, and departs. The rest of the poem follows Gawain as he gets ready to meet this appointment and the challenges to his sense of honour, loyalty, and virtue he faces along the way. It is a stunning poem and probably my favourite piece of Arthuriana. I'm a literary Medievalist by trade, but as I focus mostly on literature in Old English and Old Norse, my Middle English is actually pretty atrocious. (It's the French influence, it just shuts my Germanic brain down... #excuse). As such, I have often used translations to get a grip on the original text, and I always enjoy discovering new ones. My favourite translation so far is Simon Armitage's, as he brings a flavour to the poem which matches its original dialect. The issue with translations, of course, is that it is never the original and something is always lost (but hopefully also gained) in the process of translation. As such, I was very intrigued by what Weston Ochse would do with this "modernization".

There are a lot of aspects, or layers, to Oche's Gawain, as the blurb suggests. This book is an attempt at a comprehensive edition, one which shows various layers and versions of the poem to a non-academic audience. Ochse's Preface makes this non-academic focus very clear and I did run into some issues there. Full disclosure: I am but a junior academic, not even halfway through a PhD, but technically I am part of what one might consider the "academic establishment". It is not at all my desire to gatekeep poems like this, I fully support accessible, popular, and non-technical editions that everyone can enjoy. Ochse is completely correct in hoping that everyone can add something to our understanding of poems like these, not just dusty academics like I one day hope to be. So, on the one hand, it is on me that I had some issues with the Preface, as I'm not the target audience for this edition and knew that going in. But on the other hand, I don't think it is entirely correct to state that 14th-century England was interested in turning people into 'a zombie horde of virtue-signaling Gawains' (5%). For a poem that actually rather deftly interrogates ideas of virtue, facades, morality, and integrity, that rings false to me. I didn't entirely enjoy the way the Preface stated some things, which means I wouldn't, for example, be able to use it in the classroom. Ochse's translation, however, absolutely did the trick for me. I enjoyed how well it flowed, how modern it felt and yet how recognisably like the Middle English poem. His word choices worked for me, as did the translation into prose rather than poetry.

What really makes Ochse's Gawain stand out from other translations/editions, even ones I love like Armitage's or Tolkien's, is that it layers multiple versions of the poem atop each other. We start with Ochse's modern prose translation, which makes the poem immediately accessible to a 21st-century audience. As Ochse himself was strongly influenced by Jessie L. Weston's 1898 translation (more so, perhaps, than by the Middle English version) her translation follows second, giving us a glimpse at how a Victorian audience received this poem, which elements she highlighted and which she removed. Her two Prefaces are also very interesting and I'm glad they too were included. Third comes the Middle English poem. I'm not entirely sure where the 1348 date comes from, as the last time I read up on the poem it was more commonly dated to the last quarter of the 14th-century, or even early 15th-century. I also don't know which edition they're using, i.e. whether Ochse edited the poem himself from the manuscript or whether it is Tolkien and E.V. Gordon's definitive edition, which we still use in university courses. Whatever it is, I think it should be noted, either to properly reflect Oche's work or to credit the original editor. I did enjoy how it highlighted the bob and wheel rhythm of the poem, which I think is another step towards making it a little more accessible. The book ends on an Afterword by Jason S. Ridler who advocates for allowing stories to change, modernise, and adapt throughout the years. I am fully behind this, as my love for Maria Dahvana Headley's irreverent yet stunning translation of the Old English Beowulf should show.

I overall very much like the approach and aim behind Ochse's Gawain. I think it is great to bring a medieval text into the modern world so extensively by including both translations and the medieval text. That way, when people have familiarized themselves with the translations, they can have some fun playing around with the medieval language. That's how I got into Old English as a 17-year old! It is also good to have the Middle English alongside other version because medieval literature itself was not as obsessed with the "original" or "true" version of a story as we are now. Stories existed in various versions, each adding their own elements, removing others, and creating new layers of interpretation. (We medievalists call this variance.) With some poems, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we only have the one manuscript (known as a "manuscript witness"), whereas for other stories there are many more. (For example, of the Middle High German Das Nibelungenlied, from around 1200 CE, we have over 30 manuscript witnesses!) As such, with medieval literature the written manuscript version we have now is not necessarily the capital-O Original. The story may have existed in other manuscripts now lost, it may have been an oral poem beforehand, or perhaps it was indeed a composition by the person known as the Gawain-poet who was inspired by other Arthurian tales. Just because this manuscript version is the only one we have does not mean we should consider it the only "true" version. Each edition, translation, and adaptation, whether academic, like Tolkien and Gordon's 1925 edition, or popular, like Ochse's translation or the A24 film adaptation, are valuable in and of themselves. This doesn't mean I don't still have issues with some of the comments in Ochse's Preface or the lack of information on where the Middle English text comes from, but they are my only real gripe with this Gawain modernisation. They are also not gripes with the book or its aim, but rather with my desire for the historical context to be correct and objective, if you choose to bring it in at all. The beauty of literature is that there is space for a lot of divergent opinions and interpretations and I have no quibble with anyone who interprets a text differently than me. But we can't really disagree on the history around the text, I think. So while I don't think I could use this book as a primary source in one of my university courses, I absolutely would recommend it to those interested in engaging with the Gawain poem in its different iterations.

This Modernization of the Gawain poem offers a lot of different insights into the Middle English poem and its long afterlife. The fact that a poem from the 14th-century can continue to inspire centuries later is in and of itself amazing, and getting to see these different takes on the poem layered on top of each other provides a really interesting reading experience. For those interested in learning more of the poem's background and themes, I would recommend digging into the academic literature around it, however, much of which is also accessible online.

Review has also been uploaded on Storygraph.

Some texts need to be modernized for a current audience, and certainly the original text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight would be an extreme challenge for a modern audience. This translation not only provides a really solid reading experience, but it freshens some of the language choices along the way to make it easier to enjoy and relate to for today's readers.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Fascinating part of Arthurian lore and this Modernization was an incredibly enjoyable way to re experience the myth.

Placing multiple versions of the myth side by side allows for easy comparison and helps to increase comprehension of the piece as a whole .

This will be a well loved text by Arthurian lore fans for years to come .

Containing multiple translations, the original, and a couple of interesting essays, this is a volume worth grabbing if you are really into Arthurian anything. The e-book format is difficult to read with some of the imagery, so finding a print version or checking out the ebook version before you buy is a good idea.

ARC provided.

I really like how this version shows three translations of the epic, it would be incredibly beneficial for students or anyone simply intersected in doing a deep dive

As someone that graduated with a degree in English Literature, focusing mostly on medieval lit, I appreciate the inclusion of the original text along with the modernizations, and I have to commend Ochse for making the take more accessible to wider audiences with the goal of tackling readabilty. I know many people that don't like medieval literature or struggle with the language. That being said, I think that this modernization took away more than it added. There are other Sir Gawains that I would recommend over this one.

I enjoyed the modern retelling of an old story. It was nice to have this, along with the earlier translation, along with the original text. #SirGawainandtheGreenKnightA21stCenturyModernization #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review!!

I have always loved King Arthur tales, from the moment that I picked up The Mists of Avalon when I was younger and nothing has changed!! I have zero complaints about this book. You get the original copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and some modernizations of the poem. I also liked the list of selected readings at the end. I’ve read some of them, but I look forward to reading more.

I had to read the original poem for a class in English literature years ago and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see how the modernizations would turn out to be like!

This edition contains the original poem and two modernizations by Weston Ochse and Jessie L. Weston. There's also some very interesting scholarly articles about the play! The most important part though was the modernizations.

I really liked both of them, and they are both different enough in their approach that it is worth reading both to get a sense of how the original poem is! The original in itself is very unapproachable for people that have no experience in reading medieval texts.

Ochse's version reads more like prose than a poem, and has a pretty straightforward style that clearly tells the reader exactly what happens. It is like reading a short story, and I liked how approachable and clear it was.

The one by Weston is more in tune with the original, although with a more modern language. What I liked about this one is how it still felt like reading a poem, while the previous one very much felt line a short story.

All in all, can highly recommend to both people with a scholarly background like me, and people that don't have it. Both versions are very approachable either way! The only drawback is that I think the language is too simplistic, and itt kind of looses the originals sense of grandeur. Still, I did enjoy this!

Thank you to the publisher and netGalley for the arc!

Yes, I admit that I reached for this because of all the anticipation surrounding the new The Green Knight movie! And I also admit that I have not been familiar with the tale until now, so this was my first contact with it. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC!

Talking about the tale itself seems counterproductive, since it's been around for centuries, but let me just say that I quite enjoyed it. I haven't read many arthurian tales, but they're always fun whenever I do.

I do want to say that I really enjoy this little compilation. The book gives the reader three different version of the tale to read: the original Middle English tale, a late 19th century modernisation and now a 21st century modernisation of the tale. This is interesting for readers who like to compare different versions of one story and compare them also from a cultural (-linguistic) view. (Let me tell you that it really made me excited as a student of both English and translation)
I find modernisations wonderful, because they bring old sories closer to an audience who find the original prose (or even just a modernisation which is "out of date" at the time of reading) difficult to read. This really was an enjoyable read which still managed to retain some of the traditional, more poetic rhythm - and all the while I could jump over to the old versions to compare.

Weston Ochse handles the update of this classic story with skill, modernizing the tale while managing to keep the spirit of the original. This is a easy to follow telling which captures the essence of the original works while making it more accessible to modern audiences. A well done effort!

This book isn't a winner. In the preface we're told that Weston Ochse wanted it to be readable.

While he may have managed that, it doesn't add anything. The story doesn't feel large. It doesn't feel expansive.

Honestly it feels like it was written for young kids without the adventure in it. It's the writing style. There's nothing to it. No flourishes, fun turns of phrase or dramatics. It's just "here's the story, read it."

I don't have much to say about it other than it's a total miss.

A one (1) star.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Since I teach British Literature, a new translation or retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight easily garners my attention. However, if I mention this one in class, it will not be in a positive light.

Ochse is honest in his preface about his goal of achieving readability. Unfortunately, readability does not equal captivation. The prose version with its short sentences and basic vocabulary feels like a middle grade version of the story intended for a reading textbook. It comes off as dry, losing the precise adventurous storytelling tone that Osche wants to preserve. I’m afraid it won’t do much to gain fans of the story, nor will scholars of the text find anything of much worth to their cause. This one is a giant miss.

Thank you to Weston Osche, Dark Moon Books, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.