The adventures and challenges of Sir Gawain, King Arthur's nephew and a knight at the Round Table, including his duel with the mysterious Green Knight, are among the oldest and best known of Arthurian stories. Here the distinguished author and poet John Gardner has captured the humor, elegance, and richness of the original Middle English in flowing modern verse translations of this literary masterpiece. Besides the tale of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", this edition includes Gardner's substantial introduction to the works of the Gawain poet: his worldview and the conventions and traditions found in the poems, as well as an analysis of his poetic forms.