This review is of the SIMON ARMITAGE translation. (The reviews for different translators are all jumbled up here on Goodreads. I've tried to get the librarians to fix it, but haven't succeeded.) 
 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a tremendously good story. Since it is written in verse, not prose, this can be helped or hindered quite a bit by the translator. Different readers will have their favourites, but for my money the Simon Armitage translation rocks! One reason for this is that along with having the appropriate academic credentials for the job, and being a decent poet in his own right, Simon Armitage is actually native to the same area of Britain as the original "Gawain poet" and naturally speaks and understands the vocabulary and rhythm, of the dialect in which the original is written - albeit a much later version of that dialect. 
 Not only that, Armitage has a wicked sense of humour and isn't completely up himself, which is more than can be said for many a translator of such texts. This is a brilliant, brilliant tour de force of a Sir Gawain. Beautiful when it needs to be, ironic when it needs to be, and rough and ready as the original all the time. I frequently forced myself to put it down and take a break, just to make the pleasure last longer. 
 Did I mention that this rocks?