Book excerpt: Originally published in 1965, A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an interpretation of the most important poem in Middle English literature, the only fourteenth century work which can stand beside Chaucer. The book examines the poem’s conventions and purposes in a critical analysis and provides a useful and insightful introduction to ‘Sir Gawain’. It will be of interest to students and academics studying the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.