Rating: 
Summary: An outstanding demonstration. . .
Review: . . .of the Master's academic abilities.JRR Tolkien is best known (and rightfully so) for "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion". Nevertheless, it must be remembered that he was a career academic, holding professorships in the English Language at Oxford for more than 30 years. This book, a modern translation of three ancient stories, represents the most accessible of Tolkien's academic works. It also represents the best 20th century critical translation of these important medieval manuscripts. I highly recommend this book for fans of Tolkien's writings as an introduction to the exciting world of medieval English literature.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding demonstration. . .
Review: . . .of the Master's academic abilities. JRR Tolkien is best known (and rightfully so) for "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion". Nevertheless, it must be remembered that he was a career academic, holding professorships in the English Language at Oxford for more than 30 years. This book, a modern translation of three ancient stories, represents the most accessible of Tolkien's academic works. It also represents the best 20th century critical translation of these important medieval manuscripts. I highly recommend this book for fans of Tolkien's writings as an introduction to the exciting world of medieval English literature.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding demonstration. . .
Review: . . .of the Master's academic abilities. JRR Tolkien is best known (and rightfully so) for "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion". Nevertheless, it must be remembered that he was a career academic, holding professorships in the English Language at Oxford for more than 30 years. This book, a modern translation of three ancient stories, represents the most accessible of Tolkien's academic works. It also represents the best 20th century critical translation of these important medieval manuscripts. I highly recommend this book for fans of Tolkien's writings as an introduction to the exciting world of medieval English literature.
Rating:
Summary: supreme translations
Review: Before he was known as the writer of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien was an acclaimed translator, a deeply scholarly philologist, and a professor of the same at Oxford University. His love for language and his proficiency with Old English dialects is nowhere more evident than in these translations. The beautiful prose and poetry that flows easily from the lips will intrigue and delight even the lay reader. The accuracy and brilliance with which Tolkien sets down these words will make a fan out of any scholar. All told, these aren't of the same stock as Tolkien's fantasy novels, but they are a great find for scholars, Tolkien fans, and anyone else for that matter.
Rating:
Summary: supreme translations
Review: Before he was known as the writer of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien was an acclaimed translator, a deeply scholarly philologist, and a professor of the same at Oxford University. His love for language and his proficiency with Old English dialects is nowhere more evident than in these translations. The beautiful prose and poetry that flows easily from the lips will intrigue and delight even the lay reader. The accuracy and brilliance with which Tolkien sets down these words will make a fan out of any scholar. All told, these aren't of the same stock as Tolkien's fantasy novels, but they are a great find for scholars, Tolkien fans, and anyone else for that matter.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Metrical Translations in English
Review: Between Tolkien's legendarium and scholarship fall his translations, which are by far the most regularly metrical translations in English. "Sir Gawain" includes 101 laisses or verse paragraphs of varying length, head-rhymed on the head-stave, each with an end-rhymed bob-and-wheel refrain; "Pearl" includes 101 12-line stanzas with regular (alternating) end-rhymes in addition to the head-rhymes, plus stanza-linking rhymes. Not even Professor Lehmann's Beowulf includes 101 bob-&-wheel refrains. Tolkien's international reputation as a scholar began with his revival of "Sir Gawain" in the early `20s, and he developed these translations over the course of some 50 years. Scholarly consensus has held that "Sir Gawain" and "Pearl," the masterworks of the 14th-century Middle English alliterative-stave revival (standing in relation to Chaucer as Marlowe to Shakespeare), were composed by a West Midlands author whose name has not survived, the authentically bereaved father of the "Pearl" herself. Tolkien's "Gawain" lecture (published in The Monsters and the Critics) enlarges very helpfully on the early-`50s radio preface included in this volume. "Sir Orfeo" is a mere frippery by comparison, in stichic ballad couplets, but probably originated as a single-author work as well. Admittedly there are more authoritative sources on the Classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice than "Sir Orfeo," but that's part of the point: the Classical elements in these translations are real-life analogues of elvish/dwarvish influence in hobbit poetry. Another translation of "Sir Gawain" had been added to the Oxford Anthology of English Literature by the time Tolkien's became the first posthumous edition released by his youngest son, and Tolkien's will probably replace the current translation at some point during the 21st century. Tolkien has been taken to task for failing to complete a proof that "Sir Gawain" is a single-author work (which he might conceivably have done, considering his 1934 achievement with Chaucer's "Reeve"), but his translation answers eminence with eloquence even so. These works reflect a vibrant tradition of storytelling and minstrelsy, and the best way to read them would be to read each canto/stanza/couplet twice, once silently and once aloud; to which approach the prose paragraphs would recommend themselves as well. Tolkien's translations are associable with his other scholarly hobbies, including calligraphy, drawings and theatrical performances as well as prose fiction. Admirers of the verses in The Lord of the Rings will most likely find these translations well worth the substantially larger effort.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Metrical Translations in English
Review: Between Tolkien's legendarium and scholarship fall his translations, which are by far the most regularly metrical translations in English. "Sir Gawain" includes 101 laisses or verse paragraphs of varying length, head-rhymed on the head-stave, each with an end-rhymed bob-and-wheel refrain; "Pearl" includes 101 12-line stanzas with regular (alternating) end-rhymes in addition to the head-rhymes, plus stanza-linking rhymes. Not even Professor Lehmann's Beowulf includes 101 bob-&-wheel refrains. Tolkien's international reputation as a scholar began with his revival of "Sir Gawain" in the early '20s, and he developed these translations over the course of some 50 years. Scholarly consensus has held that "Sir Gawain" and "Pearl," the masterworks of the 14th-century Middle English alliterative-stave revival (standing in relation to Chaucer as Marlowe to Shakespeare), were composed by a West Midlands author whose name has not survived, the authentically bereaved father of the "Pearl" herself. Tolkien's "Gawain" lecture (published in The Monsters and the Critics) enlarges very helpfully on the early-'50s radio preface included in this volume. "Sir Orfeo" is a mere frippery by comparison, in stichic ballad couplets, but probably originated as a single-author work as well. Admittedly there are more authoritative sources on the Classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice than "Sir Orfeo," but that's part of the point: the Classical elements in these translations are real-life analogues of elvish/dwarvish influence in hobbit poetry. Another translation of "Sir Gawain" had been added to the Oxford Anthology of English Literature by the time Tolkien's became the first posthumous edition released by his youngest son, and Tolkien's will probably replace the current translation at some point during the 21st century. Tolkien has been taken to task for failing to complete a proof that "Sir Gawain" is a single-author work (which he might conceivably have done, considering his 1934 achievement with Chaucer's "Reeve"), but his translation answers eminence with eloquence even so. These works reflect a vibrant tradition of storytelling and minstrelsy, and the best way to read them would be to read each canto/stanza/couplet twice, once silently and once aloud; to which approach the prose paragraphs would recommend themselves as well. Tolkien's translations are associable with his other scholarly hobbies, including calligraphy, drawings and theatrical performances as well as prose fiction. Admirers of the verses in The Lord of the Rings will most likely find these translations well worth the substantially larger effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Pearl of Wisdom
Review: Gawain is the Tolekin translation of one of many versions of the story. The story is exciting but ultimately disappointing because of the incongruence of the ending with the opening. The opening indicates that King Arthur is all too aware of the false beheading trick being played in his court as he primes the action for the hapless Gawain. The ending indicates the Green Man alone instigated the trick with Morgan le Fay. The point missed by Tolkein (jnr) in the Introduction is that the brocade is the sole tangible due to the green man in the exchange of acquisitions, so a real dishonour. Anyway Camelot' s self advertised mythology is well and truly pricked.
Pearl, on the other hand is a true medaeval pagan gem, arguing that religion is the exploitation of bereavement. Religion claims the deceased for heaven; it offers reunion to the survivor conditional on temporal faith. If the departed is beloved of a survivor then that cat runs headlong into the priest' s bag with little prompting. The poet becomes so seduced by the vision of the New Jerusalem he comes to see his former reason as madness and so went the world.
The strength of Christian theology surely developed from these kinds of rational resistence. Ultimetely reason conquered and theology relapsed to a dogmatic statement of faith in the shape of pearl (Aquinas). A great and thoroughly authentic work of transitional pagan genius saved by Tolkein.
Rating:
Summary: The best translation I've seen
Review: I have the unique perspective of having read this in the original language. Tolkien takes some liberties with the text, but does a remarkably good job of maintaining accuracy, alliteration, and the general "feel" of the poem. As for the poem itself, it is a simply marvelous tale with incredible implications...such as *is* Mary a saint or a sinner...is this misogynistic or not...etc. Not for the faint of heart.
Rating:
Summary: The best translation I've seen
Review: I have the unique perspective of having read this in the original language. Tolkien takes some liberties with the text, but does a remarkably good job of maintaining accuracy, alliteration, and the general "feel" of the poem. As for the poem itself, it is a simply marvelous tale with incredible implications...such as *is* Mary a saint or a sinner...is this misogynistic or not...etc. Not for the faint of heart.
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