Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo cover art

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo

with Pearl and Sir Orfeo

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo

By: not specified, J. R. R. Tolkien - translator
Narrated by: Terry Jones
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About this listen

A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour.

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.

©1975 J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust; (p)1997 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London, UK Europe European Great Britain Literary History & Criticism Poetry World Literature

Critic Reviews

‘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
All stars
Most relevant
i loved this book. i loved seeing how the English wrote stories with such great poetry and biblical principles and doctrine so good

great poetry

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the performance is absolutely brilliant as are the stories and poetry. I can not recommend it enough.

absolutely brilliant

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These stories/poems translated by J.R.R Tolkien and read by Terry Jones is incredible to listen too. They feel as though they are taken straight from the silmarilion

Great stories, extremely well translated

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