Dear supporter of Gawain and the Green Knight, I thought I would send you one of my occasional updates about what I have been up to as things are getting quite exciting on the follow-up book, King Arthur's Death.
Today, I'm delighted to report that the book has reached 60% funding and 189 backers! Many - but by no means all - of the supporters for Arthur have come from those of you who were kind enough to support my work on Gawain.
I am deeply honoured by your support for my work in this area - the contextual history, the translation and, of course, the linocut illustrations. We're well over half way there but there is still work to do to get the book over the line, so this update is to ask whether you would like to be a patron of this new work as well (if you have not done so already of course).
What's the book about?
In short, the original poem took the base Arthurian story of Geoffrey of Monmouth and turned it into one of the most astonishing English poems of all time. We're not talking Malory here, nor are we talking the romanticised works of Chretien de Troyes or Wolfram von Eschenbach. We're not talking courtly love and delicacy. Oh no, we're talking about a king, his folly and about war, in all its unglorified detail. It is one unknown poet's pithy response to the whimsical fantasy of the Arthurian canon. It's a cracker!
- Like Gawain, this is a product of the 14th Century Alliterative Revival. It reads with verve, passion and excitement. At the same time, it causes us to reflect on the characters rather than glorify them; much in the way the Gawain-poet did with his own creations.
- Like Gawain, I am undertaking what I call a "contextual translation" - I don't just translate the work, I give you a detailed insight into what the poet was writing about. In Arthur, this includes mediaeval warfare, contemporary politcal events and an insight into mediaeval religious approaches to war and its justice.
- Like Gawain, I adopt a style reflective of the original poet. I don't try to be clever or regional, I write in a way that if the poet came back today he would get a feel for the metre he himself knew well.
- Unlike Gawain, this poem comes from Yorkshire/Lincolnshire instead of Lancashire/Cheshire/Staffordshire and, I am pleased to say, still speaks in the blunt way of those wonderful counties. As they say today, you can always tell a Yorkshireman. But not very much.
I'd love to have you on board as a patron of this new book. As with Gawain, I am illustrating it throughout with some cracking new linocuts (32 in total) and I will be creating linocuts of the illuminated letters too. Like Gawain, it will be another illuminated manuscript for the modern age.
Do please come aboard. Help the once and future king come alive again to tell anew his cautionary tale for today's drifting and uncertain world.
Pledge for this new translation of King Arthur's Death here.
Kind regards
Michael Smith,
Author, translator, printmaker