Book description
The Alliterative Morte Arthure - the title given to a four-thousand
line poem written sometime around 1400 - was part of a medieval
Arthurian revival which produced such masterpieces as Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight and Sir Thomas Malory's prose Morte D'Arthur. Like
Gawain, the Alliterative Morte Arthure is a unique manuscript (held in
the library of Lincoln Cathedral) by an anonymous author, and written
in alliterating lines which harked back to Anglo-Saxon poetic
composition. Unlike Gawain, whose plot hinges around one moment of
jaw-dropping magic, The Death of King Arthur deals in the
cut-and-thrust of warfare and politics: the ever-topical matter of
Britain's relationship with continental Europe, and of its military
interests overseas. Simon Armitage is already the master of this
alliterative music, as his earlier version of Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight (2006) so resourcefully and exuberantly showed. His new
translation restores a neglected masterpiece of story-telling, by
bringing vividly to life its entirely medieval mix of ruthlessness and restraint.
Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire and is Professor of
Poetry at the University of Sheffield. A recipient of numerous prizes
and awards, he has published ten collections of poetry, including
Selected Poems (2001), Seeing Stars (2010), and his acclaimed
translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007). A broadcaster
and presenter, he also writes extensively for television and radio, is
the author of two novels and the best-selling memoir All Points North.
In 2010 he received the CBE for services to poetry.
