Meme...

In an effort to force you all to post something, I've tagged all of you fellow Riddlers for the mutated medieval meme. You can find the details in my version of the meme, posted at PoKR. I know you're all busy, but I'm expecting good things from you all!

Sir Gawain and the Gush of Translations...

Today in my email I received a link to a new "innovative translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" by Adam Golaski (professor of creative writing at the University of Connecticut), which he has titled Green. So far, Golaski's released on section a month, started in December: here is fit one, part one; here is fit one, part two.

I also recently bought the new (and also acclaimed as innovative) translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage (W. W. Norton, 2007), and have so far read about the first fit.

Why all the surge of Sir Gawain? I don't know, but he (and his poem) seems to be gaining popularity in the public eye. Perhaps he'll start giving Beowulf a run for his money, although that might take a major motion picture release, and we haven't seen (or hear rumors of ) one of those since 1984 (film title: Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). I'm interested in people's thoughts on this: either about the growing popularity of the Middle English poem or about the translations. As Gawain himself would say, "Haf at þe þenne!"

[Cross-posted at Point of Know Return.]

This really does not belong here, but...

...I GOT MY DEGREE FROM HOUGHTON!

I'm officially out of there and smart and stuff, just like the rest of you!

[And post already, will you? I don't have anything to say right around this time.]

Finally read it! NotR

I am a lapsed novel reader, and every year at Christmas I promise to climb back on the wagon. For the second holiday season, Umberto Eco provided the means. This season, I finally read Name of the Rose. In the interest of keeping NYR (New Year's Resolution) 1--namely to post more on R47--and in hopes that the ensuing conversation might help encourage me to keep NYR2 (read more novels)--I'll make a brief post here.

Brandon, I remember you posting something somewhere about the book--could you provide a link? General reaction: I enjoyed the book and felt transported into the 14th century. (And I wanted to stay there, although I think the burning of the library may have totally undone me--I would have become a wandering mad mendicant.) Eco plays with a lot of things, and I lament my lack of Latin yet once more as it means I missed key issues that were at play. One theme that I enjoyed thinking about, and one that seems ever relevant, is the danger of certainty and the shifting sands of knowledge and justification. Both the philosophical issues (Aristotle, later Bacon, vs, Plato, Plotinus, Augustine) and the theological issues (the chronology of the attainment of the beatific vision, and the role of poverty in the life of Christ, the Church, the believer) are imminently current.

So what do you all recall/review from the book, and what did you make of it?

Happy new year!

May God continue grace us all with his love, patience and presence.
Stay warm, friends. Stay safe.