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.
Reviews
The essays span a wide and representative array of critical issues beginning with manuscript studies and proceeding through language, prosody, early reception, modern reception, and critical interpretation, with some source study along the way. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *
A welcome contribution to studies of Layamon. * ANGLIA *



Book Information
ISBN 9780859914123
Author Francoise H M Le Saux
Format Hardback
Page Count 284
Imprint D.S. Brewer
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 596g