Which poem did J.R.R. Tolkien publish in 1925 with E.V. Gordon as an edition and commentary?

J.R.R. Tolkien published Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in 1925 with E.V. Gordon as an edition and commentary. The work presented the Middle English poem with scholarly notes and became an important contribution to medieval literary studies.

The poem tells of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur’s court, who accepts a supernatural challenge from the Green Knight. Its themes include courage, courtesy, temptation, truth, and the difficulty of living up to an ideal code.

Tolkien’s expertise in medieval English deeply informed his creative writing. His translation and commentary work helped him understand the sounds, vocabulary, alliterative style, and cultural assumptions of the texts he studied.

This publication is sometimes confused with Tolkien’s later essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” delivered in 1936. Both works concern medieval literature, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was edited with E.V. Gordon and published as a 1925 scholarly volume.