Alliterative Morte Arthure

John Gardner is Professor of English at Southern Illinois University. His previous books include a modernized English version of The Complete Works of the Gawain-Poet and a recently published novel, The Wreckage of Agathon.

“His proved literary creativity makes Gardner’s translations of me­dieval poems exceptional, and superior to those by possibly more erudite interpreters; and his equally sure position as a teacher guar­antees a basic fidelity to his sources where a poet lacking his schol­arship might falter.”—Rossell Hope Robbins, Anglia“John Gardner… modernizes rather than translates the title poems, plus Win­ner and Waster, Parliament of Three Ages, Summer Sunday, Debate of Body and Soul,and Thrush and Nightingale,generally preserving the original meter, alliteration, and vigor. The seven poems represent a sampling of the ‘alliterative revival’ of later medieval England; regret­tably, all seven are seldom edited, rarely translated, and little studied or taught. So Gardner’s making them available for the general reader is a real service. His appre­ciations are lively and sensible.”—Donald K. Fry, Library Journal