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Laʒamon’s «Brut» between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance

A Study of the Lexical Fields ‘Hero’, ‘Warrior’ and ‘Knight’

by Christine Elsweiler (Author)
©2011 Thesis XX, 470 Pages

Summary

The two manuscripts of the early Middle English chronicle Laʒamon’s Brut, British Library MS Cotton Caligula A ix and British Library MS Cotton Otho C xiii, display marked differences in their use of vocabulary. Whereas the vocabulary of the Caligula manuscript is consciously archaising, the lexicon of the Otho text is more modern. This study of the lexical fields ‘hero’, ‘warrior’ and ‘knight’ in the Brut chronicle investigates both the backward orientation of the Caligula Brut towards Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry and the supposed orientation of the Otho Brut towards the newly emerging genre of the Middle English romance. The results highlight the creative use of Old English models in both manuscripts and disprove the hypothesised close link between the Otho Brut and the romance genre.

Details

Pages
XX, 470
Publication Year
2011
ISBN (PDF)
9783653009330
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631596692
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-00933-0
Language
English
Publication date
2011 (August)
Keywords
Cultural transfer Old and Middle English nominal compounds alliterative clusters Old English heroic poetry
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2011. XX, 470 pp., num. tables
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Christine Elsweiler (Author)

Christine Elsweiler, degree in English and French linguistics and literature at the University of Erlangen in 2004; research visit at the University of Glasgow in 2005 to use the facilities of the Historical Thesaurus of the English language project as part of her doctoral studies; completion of her PhD thesis in historical linguistics in 2009.

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Title: Laʒamon’s «Brut» between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance