Welcome to Litsy!

Recent home library acquisition:

📖 From Old English to Standard English (second edition): A Course Book in Language Variation Across Time by Dennis Freeborn

Random book from our home library:

📖 One Hundred Middle English Lyrics edited with an introduction by Robert D. Stevick

Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was always my favourite. It might not be the most strictly accurate, but it's the one that tries to be earnest in reflecting the sounds and joy of the original, rather than trying to be scholarly. There's a place for both.

Random book from our home library:

📖 Six Middle English Romances edited by Maldwyn Mills

#aprilpoetrychallenge
#nationalpoetrymonth
@wanderinglynn

#green
#sirgawainandthegreenknight

I spent 5.5 months working in this. Piers is important historically, both linguistically and politically. When the peasants revolted in 1381, this work, with its commoner plowman religious hero, was cited. It was popular amongst the underclasses (even if they were largely illiterate). Intellectually it‘s interesting in that it‘s inconclusive. Our author never resolves his issues. But, artistically it‘s only ok. It was work. I‘m glad I‘m done.

Random book from our home library:

📖 Medieval English Verse and Prose edited by Loomis & Willard

★★★★☆

This translation was, at times, both easier and more difficult than others I have read.

p. 14
'Then they showed forth the shield, that shone all red,
With the pentangle portrayed in purest gold.
About his broad neck by the baldric he casts it,
That was meet for the man, and matched him well.
...
For it is a figure formed of five points,
And each line is linked and locked with the next
For ever and ever, and hence it is called
In England, as I hear, the endless knot.'

p. 7
'And so I call in this court for a Christmas game,
For 'tis Yule and New Year, and many young bloods about;
If any in this house such hardihood claims,
Be so bold in his blood, his brain so wild,
As stoutly to strike one stroke for another,
I shall give him as my gift this gisarme noble,
This ax, that is heavy enough, to handle as he likes,
And I shall bide the first blow, as bare as I sit.
⬇️