Forgotten Ground Regained

Simon Corble's Introducion to His Alliterative Verse Adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The making of the verse-play
Deeply inspired by reading the narrative poem in its original form, in 1991 I set about creating a theatrical version of the tale that would carry its flavour, its grit, its Northwest-of-England accents and its beautiful poetic textures. The mythical power of the central story, with its beheading, Sir Gawain’s quest, his trials and temptations needed no elaboration. I was writing for a promenade form of theatre, however and for a production that would be staged throughout the Summer of 1992 and so I worked up a script that would work for this unique form of theatre, which I had pioneered with my company, Midsommer Actors in 1990.
Our first production was Shakespeare’s The Tempest, staged on a tidal island close to Liverpool, in which the tide itself was an actor and the audience physically followed the action around the small island of Hilbre, from clifftop to beach, to cave and, finally, back over the sands once the waters had fully receded. For what was to be our fourth outing, ‘Gawayne and the Green Knight’, the setting became the very hills, rock formations and woodlands which I felt were very much in the original poet’s imagina-tion, those of the North of England – a far wilder place in the Middle Ages than we see today, but the major landscape features still remain.
Many years later, I had the chance to work on the play afresh, for an indoor production, with an audience in-the-round and staged during mid-Winter, (when most of the action is set). This 2014 version, staged at the O’Reilly Theatre, Keeble College, Oxford, really gets to the heart of the story, for me; it plays up the power of the natural world and the season around Christmas and New Year, while preserving what was powerful in my original version – the language, the alliterative poetry, the physical rough-and-tumble and the all-important music.
I came to see what I was creating as, almost, ‘a medieval musical’ – that is, a ‘musical’ supposing the 14th/15th centuries had such a term. The alliterative style of verse I was using, was not only the same as the original poem, but identical to the form used in some of the Medieval mystery plays and we had sourced all of the music from those centuries too.
The Oxford University production used large puppets for the Green Knight and various animals, which was highly effective and theatrical, but most of all I was delighted by the way the script sounded in the mouths of the actors, right from the first read-through. I had worked very hard on revising the verse – to make its rhythms and textures, rather than any landscape, do much of the theatrical work and it was a real thrill to hear these new, young voices bring it to life.
The Vocabulary
I have been deliberately free-and-easy and sometimes downright cheeky in my choice of words. One moment I am quoting from the original poem as closely as I can without losing clarity, the next I am throwing in a modern-sounding phrase like “handsome hunk”. While I wanted to celebrate the music and rich texture of the original poem, I was also very aware of how the anonymous author was, in his own time, incorporating relatively fresh words like “adventure” into a work that was attempting to sound like it came from an earlier tradition, pre-Norman conquest. I can also remember studying Chaucer for the first time, and coming across “gear” used for clothing; I only knew this as a modern slang term. The English language has been fantastically fluid and flexible, (adoring alliteration) throughout its evolution and I saw no reason to break with this proud tradition for a work of living, breathing theatre. What has happened, as the play’s script has evolved before different audiences, is for the more startling modernisms to be swept up into passages of fast-flowing speech, or for them to be reserved for more light-hearted moments, (as, for example, “handsome hunk ” ) or for more ‘comic’ characters.
Any true scholars of Middle English, on reading this text, will consider that certain passages of poem have been mistranslated before being included in the script. Once again, I have been far more interested in re-creating something of the music of the original language, for dramatic effect, aiming less for absolute accuracy in my translation; that is a different agenda.
The Verse Form
he text of the play follows the same form as the original poem, which was very much a part of the regional revival of an older style, with roots in Old English forms. There are four heavy stresses in each line, three of which usually alliterate with each other, (normally the first three). The heavy stresses can occur just about anywhere in the line - it might be the first syllable, or it might be five or six syllables in before you meet the first heavy stress. There can be as many unstressed or lightly stressed syllables as required, with or without alliteration. Sometimes all the heavy stresses alliterate, for added emphasis; sometimes the pattern of the line is back to front, and at others there are two alliterating pairs; finally, there are a few lines that break all the rules, or mightily bend them, (just as there are in the original).
The important thing for the actor is to find the four stresses, using the alliterative principle as a guide – and then to relax completely and forget all about the verse. There are often some interesting creative decisions to be made in choosing the stressed syllables. The effect desired of the whole thing is for it to sound like a rhythmic yet very natural form of speech.
Also note that:
  • The alliterative rule allows all stressed initial vowels to go together - e.g. But the answer’s an object, or else there’s no prize.
  • And words beginning with “h” are also counted as vowels – e.g. What! Is this Arthur’s house, of honour renowned….?
  • “r” and “w” also count as a match – e.g. What ransom would be right to win your release?
  • Here and there I “cheat” a little, mixing a “ch” with a “c”, for example. But there is not really such a thing as cheating, as the style offers such freedom; it’s a case of whatever sounds right for the moment.
For variety, every so often the poem – and my play’s text – throws up a little “bob” – a very short “line” of two syllables, which is linked to a “wheel” of four lines having three heavy stresses; these rhyme with each other, as well as with the “bob”. The pattern will become clear on reading. I have tried to use this technique to the same dramatic effect as in the original, employing it at moments of high tension, or in summing-up a piece of action; (interestingly, the same is used in the verse of some medieval mystery plays, written at about the same period).
For this published version, I have reshaped the stage directions into the same verse-style. They might be read aloud at a reading of the play but are not intended to be voiced during a full performance.
Simon Corble, September 2024.