Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T13:50:54.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Green Knight’s castle and the translators

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Archibald A. Hill
Archibald A. Hill*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the particularly fine passages in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the description of the Castle when Gawain first sees it. Yet when one studies the way in which translators have handled it, one finds that many modern versions seem unnecessarily colourless, and others though more colourful, are freer than needful. I have consequently gathered a fairly full sampling of modern versions of the passage, with the purpose of searching for possible principles of translation which might be useful elsewhere as well as in the passage itself. It seems fitting that the results should be presented here, since the chief tool I have used is the semantic law formulated by Martin Joos in 1953. The law, as it applies to a given context, states that the possible meanings are to be judged as to which contributes least to the totality of the context. I have discussed and used the law frequently with students, and also in print in 1959 (Hill 1959). The present essay constitutes a further presentation of the results of using the law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 17 , Issue 2-3 , 1972 , pp. 140 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Andrew, 1929. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. by Andrew, S. O.. London and New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Banks 1929. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. by Banks, Theodore H.. New York: F. S. Crofts.Google Scholar
Borroff, 1967. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A New Verse Translation, by Borroff, Marie. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Cawley, 1962. Pearl. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Cawley, A. C.. London: Everyman Library.Google Scholar
Gardner, 1965. The Complete Works of the Gawain Poet, ed. and tr. by Gardner, John. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gollancz, 1940. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, ed. by SirGollancz, Israel. London, New York, Toronto: The Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society.Google Scholar
Hill, 1959. “Principles Governing Semantic Parallels,” by Hill, Archibald A.. Studies in Literature and Language, University of Texas, I, pp. 356–65.Google Scholar
Joos, 1953. “Towards a First Theorem in Semantics,” a paper delivered before the Linguistic Society of America, 29 December 1953, by Joos, Martin.Google Scholar
Joos, 1958. Review of Hamp, Eric, A Glossary of American Technical Usage, in Language, XXXIV, p. 286.Google Scholar
Menner, 1920. Purity. A Middle English Poem, ed. by Menner, Robert J.. New Haven: Yale Studies in English 61.Google Scholar
Med. The Middle English Dictionary, ed. by Kurath, Hans and Kuhn, Sherman M.. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1954 ff.Google Scholar
Ned. The New English Dictionary, ed. by Murray, , Bradley, , Craigie, , and Onions, , Oxford: Clarendon, 1961. (originally printed 1897-1928).Google Scholar
Pace, 1960. Gawain and the Green Knight in English Literature , A College Anthology, ed. by Clark, , Dickinson, , Hudson, , and Pace, . New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Raffel, 1970. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. by Raffel, Burton. New York: New American Library, Mentor Books.Google Scholar
Ridley, 1944. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. by Ridley, M. R.. Leicester [England]: Ward.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, 1959. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. by Rosenberg, James L.. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Stone, 1959. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. by Stone, Brian. Baltimore: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Tolkien, and Gordon, 1930. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. by Tolkien, J. R. R. and Gordon, E. V.. Oxford: Clarendon. First published in 1925. Last revised in 1936.Google Scholar
Tolkien, and Gordon, 1967. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. by Tolkien, J. R. R. and Gordon, E. V., 2nd ed. rev. by Davis, Norman. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Weston, 1900. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, retold by Weston, Jessie L.. London: David Nutt.Google Scholar
Whiting, 1942. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” tr. by Whiting, B. J., in The College Survey of English Literature, ed. by Whiting, , Millet, , Witherspoon, , Shepard, , Hudson, and Untermeyer, . 2 vols. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Williams, 1949. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” in Glee-Wood … Passages from Middle English Literature…, tr. by Williams, Margaret. New York: Sheed and Ward.Google Scholar