Essays reflecting the present state of Layamon studies, identifying problems and outlining current directions in research. This volume investigates the problems with which the contemporary reader of Layamon's Brut is faced: To what extent is the archaic feel of the Brut part of a deliberate aesthetic strategy of Layamon's? For what sortof audience could it have been written? How can one define its relation to older or more recent texts and traditions? What ideological stance (if any) is to be deduced from the work? The seventeen articles in this book tackle the different issues from a variety of fields: codicology and palaeography; Linguistics, stylists and syntax; the socio-political dimension of the work and its possible audience; the tradition upon which Layamon was drawing, and his contribution to later writers; literary theory and more general issues such as gender and spatial symbolism in the Brut. A number of essays present a synthesis of points of view, specifically intended to provide students with a yardstick against which to measure the more controversial articlesin the volume. Contributors: MARIE-FRANCOISE ALAMICHEL, ROSAMUND ALLEN, STEPHEN K. BREHE, BETH BRYAN, ARTHUR WAYNE GLOWKA, MARSHAL S. GRANT, DOUGLAS MOFFAT, YOKO IYEIRI, LESLEY JOHNSON, FRANCOICE LE SAUX, JAMES I. McNELIS III, JAMES NOBLE, HERBERT PILCH, JANE ROBERTS, ERIC G. STANLEY, CAROLE WEINBERG, KELLEY M. WICKHAM-CROWLEY, NEIL WRIGHT Dr FRANCOISE LE SAUXlectures in Medieval English language and literature at the University of Lausanne.

This book discusses the attitudes toward Anglo-Saxons expressed by English poets, playwrights and novelists from the thirteenth century to the present day. The essays are arranged chronologically, tracing literary responses to the Anglo-Saxons in the medieval period, the Renaissance, and also the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The contributors, who are specialists in their respective fields from Britain and the United States, draw on works that have frequently been ignored or overlooked. They address topical issues such as nationalism, cultural identity, myth, gender and contextualization.

This book, first published in 2000, discusses the attitudes towards Anglo-Saxons expressed by English poets, playwrights and novelists from the thirteenth century to the present day. The essays are arranged chronologically, tracing literary responses to the Anglo-Saxons in the medieval period, the Renaissance and also the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In earlier centuries the Ango-Saxons were often idealized representatives of happier times. Later, they became the epitome of a 'British' race, while an individual Anglo-Saxon, King Alfred, was inflated into a national hero. A final essay suggests the disappearance of any clear sense of the cultural roots of the English in the twentieth century. The contributors, who are specialists in their respective fields from Britain and the United States, draw on works that have frequently been ignored or overlooked. They address topical issues such as nationalism, cultural identity, myth, gender and contextualization.

For La amon, or Lawman (both forms are used), a parish priest living on the Welsh March c.1200, the criteria of language, race and territory all provided ways of defining the nation state, which is why his "Brut" commands a diverse readership to-day. The range of view-points in this book reflects the breadth and complexity of La amon's own vision of the way his world is moulded by past conquests and racial tensions. The "Brut" is an open-ended narrative of Britain, its peoples, and its place-names as they changed under new rulers, and tells, for the first time in English, the rise and fall of Arthur, highlighting his role in the unfolding history of Britain. Beginning with its legendary founder, Brutus, the story is imagined anew, and although it concludes with an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, La amon's closing words remind us that changes will come: "i-wuroe et iwuroe: i-wuroe Godes wille. Amen." This book offers detailed discussion and new perspectives. Its contributors explore aspects of behaviour and attitudes, personal and national identity and governance, language, metre, and the reception of La amon's "Brut "in later times. Comparisons are made with Latin writings and with French, Welsh, Spanish and Icelandic, placing La amon firmly within a European network of readers and redactors. The book will interest those working on medieval chronicles, as well as specialists in medieval law, custom, English language and literature, and comparative literature.