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Layamon, or Laȝamon (using the archaic letter yogh), was a poet of the early 13th century, whose Brut (c. 1215) is a history of England in verse written in early Middle English. Although based on the earlier Roman de Brut written in Anglo-Norman by Wace (incorrectly known as Robert Wace), itself based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae, Layamon's poem is remarkable for its abundant Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; the scholar Roger Loomis counted only 150 Romance words in the 32,200 lines. Layamon describes himself in his poem as a priest, living at Areley Kings in Worcestershire. His poem provided inspiration for numerous later writers, including Sir Thomas Malory and Jorge Luis Borges, and had an impact on medieval history writing in England. Brut s versification has proven extremely difficult to characterise. Written in a loose alliterative style, and sporadically deploying rhyme, as well as a caesural pause between the hemistichs of a line, it is perhaps closer to the rhythmical prose of Aelfric than verse per se. Especially in comparison with later alliterative writings such as Sir Gawain and the Green KnightSir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th century metrical romance recorded in a manuscript containing a number of other pieces of an altogether more Christian orientation, which are linked by a commonality of dialect usage. The dialect is the West M and Piers PlowmanPiers Plowman ( 1360 1399) is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative, written in unrhymed alliterative verse, and generally considered the earliest great work of English literature, and the greatest Middle English poem before Chaucer's Canter, Laȝamon's alliterating verse is difficult to analyse, seemingly avoiding the more formalised styles of the later poets.
External links
- Brut by Layamon (British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix manuscriptA manuscript ( Latin manu scriptus written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. Manuscripts in history Before the invention of the printing press, all wri version)
- Brut (British Library, Cotton Otho C.xiii manuscript version)
Medieval literatureMedieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe during the Middle Ages (roughly from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. 500 AD to the beginning of the Florentine Renaissance in the late 15th cen
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