Layamon

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Layamon (Laȝamon, using the archaic letter yogh), or Lawman,[1] was a poet of the early 13th century and author of the Brut, a notable English poem of the 12th century that was the first English language work to discuss the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

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.

Contents

[edit] Brut

Main article: Brut (Layamon)

Layamon's Brut (c. 1215) is a history of England in verse written in a form of Middle English, although this is at times bastardized to include more modern Anglo-Norman forms, and at times, deliberately "archaistic" Saxon forms which were quaint even by Anglo-Saxon standards. 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, the poem is itself the first historiography written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Layamon's poem is also remarkable for its abundant Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; the scholar Roger Loomis counted only 150 words derived from Anglo-Norman in the 16,000 long-lines. Many scholars believe the language of the poem to be intentionally archaised, rather than indicative of the Middle English commonly written and spoken during Layamon's lifetime.

The 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 Ælfric of Eynsham than verse per se. Especially in comparison with later alliterative writings such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman, Layamon's alliterating verse is difficult to analyse, seemingly avoiding the more formalised styles of the later poets.

An authoritative edition of the Brut is the parallel text edition by Brook and Leslie. It includes the account by both the Caligula and the Otho manuscripts on facing pages. Published by EETS, the first volume was issued in 1963 and the second in 1978.

Laȝamon's Brut remains one of the best extant examples of early Middle English[2]. During an era in English history when most prose and poetry were composed in French, including Wace's Roman de Brut, Laȝamon main resource for the Brut, [3] and the lais of Marie de France, Laȝamon wrote to his illiterate, impoverished religious audience in Worcestershire.

In 1216, around the time Laȝamon was likely scribing this work, King Henry III of England came to reign. Henry regarded himself as an 'Englishman,' unlike many of his recent predecessors, and transitioned his kingdom away from more than 50 years of feudalism and the Old French dialects that had ruled the country's cultural endeavors[4].

Several original passages in the poem—or at least in accordance with the present knowledge of extant texts from the Middle Ages -- suggest Laȝamon is interested in carving out the history of the Britons as the people 'who first possessed the land of the English'[5]. His imitations in the Brut of certain stylistic and prosodic features of Old English alliterative verse show a knowledge and interest in preserving its conventions as well[6]. Two copies of the manuscript are kept in the British Museum.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ On the spellings of his name, cf. the program of The Fifth International Conference on Laȝamon's Brut at Brown University (retrieved October 21, 2006): "BL MS Cotton Caligula A.ix spells it "Laȝamon" (the third letter is called a "yogh"). BL MS Cotton Otho C.xiii spelled it "Laweman" and "Loweman". Print-era editors and cataloguers have spelled it "Layamon", "Lazamon", or "Lawman". The form "Layamon" is etymologically incorrect.
  2. ^ Solopova, Elizabeth, and Stuart D. Lee. Key Concepts in Medieval Literature. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  3. ^ Everett, Dorothy. "Laȝamon and the Earliest Middle English Alliterative Verse." Essays on Middle English Literature. Ed. Patricia Kean. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
  4. ^ Ackerman, Robert W. Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature. 1st. New York: Random House, Inc., 1966.
  5. ^ Everett, Dorothy. "Laȝamon and the Earliest Middle English Alliterative Verse." Essays on Middle English Literature. Ed. Patricia Kean. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
  6. ^ Ackerman, Robert W. Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature. 1st. New York: Random House, Inc., 1966.

[edit] References

  • Cannon, Christopher . The Grounds of English Literature, Chapter 2. Oxford University Press. 2004. ISBN 0-19-927082-1
  • Lewis, C. S. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
  • Loomis, Roger S. "Layamon's Brut" in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959. ISBN 0-19-811588-1
  • Ackerman, Robert W. Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature. 1st. New York: Random House, Inc., 1966.
  • Everett, Dorothy. "Laȝamon and the Earliest Middle English Alliterative Verse." Essays on Middle English Literature. Ed. Patricia Kean. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
  • Solopova, Elizabeth, and Stuart D. Lee. Key Concepts in Medieval Literature. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  • Barron, W. R. J., Weinberg, S. C. (2001) Ed., & trans. Layamon's Arthur: The Arthurian Section of Layamon's Brut (lines 9229–14297). Exeter: Exeter University Press ISBN 9780859896856 (first published by Longman 1989)
  • Tiller, Kenneth J. (2007)Layamon's Brut and the Anglo-Norman Vision of History University of Chicago Press ISBN 9780708319024

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