Layamon's "Brut" and the runes of history.
Item
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Title
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Layamon's "Brut" and the runes of history.
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Identifier
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AAI9924815
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identifier
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9924815
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Creator
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Harford, Thomas Joseph.
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Contributor
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Director: Scott D. Werstrem
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Date
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1999
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Medieval | Literature, English | History, Medieval | History, European
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Abstract
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In my study of La3 amon's Brut (c. 1200), 1 explore and articulate the chronicle poem's various narrative representations as they regard the subject of history: its authority in the text, its relation to power, and its thematic treatment as both a way of interpreting events and a subject of interpretation. I demonstrate that La3 amon's contends with the past in a variety of ways, and that his narrative representations and interpretations of history foreclose the possibility for a single and overarching historical truth to take hold in his Brut .;Chapter one explores the scholarship spawned by the perceived "Englishness" of the Brut's style. My review highlights the importance critics have placed on La3 amon's relationship to England itself, as evidenced in their attempts to, on the one hand, locate his position vis-a-vis the possibility of a distinctly English identity, or, on the other, to demonstrate his harmony with Norman influences. I show that La3 amon's treatment of the past is intricately connected to his poem's anomalous and archaistic language.;In chapter two, I examine closely how the thematic treatment of the word run(e) stands as a metaphor to the chronicle's varied interpretations of the subject of history. I argue that La3 amon's repeated and provocative use of the word constitutes a theme in the poem that allegorizes the difficulties of interpreting the past.;In chapter three, I investigate how the poem's representations of prophecy may be construed to communicate the possibility for an idealized---and perhaps stabilized---history. I explore how La3 amon's very vocal assertions of the truth of prophecy manifest themselves most clearly in the characterization of Merlin and his pronouncements concerning Arthur.;In chapter four, I extricate the poem's thematic use of the narrative formula of exile, dominion, and return; I pursue this issue in light of the previous chapters' discussions of historical narrative interpretation. I explore the relevance and meaning of the chronicle's final example of the dominion-exile-return pattern: i.e., the conquest of the Angles over the Britons, leading to the "final" transference of power over the land now referred to as England.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
