Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
What is meant by the Riming Chronicles? What part did they play in developing the idea of nationality? What led historians of this period to write in verse? Describe Geoffrey's History. What was its most valuable element from the view point of literature? What is Layamon's Brut? Why did Layamon choose this name for his Chronicle? What special literary interest attaches to the poem?
No abbey library could be without it, just as no gentleman's library could be without a copy of the English Chronicle called the Brut. Here is a case in which we know the beginning and end of the book's wanderings, but not the middle of the story.
So those who came after him could trust him. Bede's History, you remember, was one of the books which Layamon used when he wrote his Brut, and in it we find many of the stories of early British history which have grown familiar to us.
"By the instigation of the devil," says the Brut y Tywysogion, "a great dissension arose between the sons of Gruffydd namely, Owain the Red and David on the one side, and Llywelyn on the other.
Take, for instance, the account of the great Eisteddfod in 1176, from the Brut y Tywysogion: "The lord Rhys held a grand festival at the castle of Aberteivi, wherein he appointed two sorts of competitions one between the bards and poets, and the other between harpers, fiddlers, pipers, and various performers of instrumental music; and he assigned two chairs for the victors in the competitions; and these he enriched with vast gifts.
The following is the oldest account of the battle, translated into quaint and literal English by Madden from the book called "Layamon's Brut"; "Innumerable folk it came toward the host, riding and on foot, as the rain down falleth! Arthur marched to Cornwall, with an immense army. Modred heard that, and advanced against him with innumerable folk, there were many fated!
A wonderful tale he told of all the British kings from the time that Brut the Trojan settled in the country and called it, after himself, Britain! For Geoffrey's book was history only in name. What he tells us is that he was given an ancient chronicle found in Brittany, and was asked to translate it from Welsh into the better known language, Latin.
"O Balin! two bodies hast thou slain and one heart, and two hearts in one body, and two souls thou hast lost. And therewith she took the sword from her love that lay dead, and as she took it, she fell to the ground in a swoon." Malory's work, rather than Layamon's Brut, has been the storehouse to which later poets have turned. Many nineteenth-century poets are indebted to Malory.
She had been glad and over eager just now to restore her faith to this big brut of a man; at a mere word from him she had been ready to condone a crime and forgive an insult.... She felt her face grow hot; he had kissed her rudely and she had been willing to find excuses, she had even felt as odd sort of thrill tingling through her.
In our study we have noted: Geoffrey's History, which is valuable as a source book of literature, since it contains the native Celtic legends of Arthur. The work of the French writers, who made the Arthurian legends popular. Riming Chronicles, i.e. history in doggerel verse, like Layamon's Brut. Metrical Romances, or tales in verse. The best of these romances is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking