Discourse of the Nation in Layamon’s Brut

• Main Authors: Ting-Ying Chen, 陳亭吟
• Other Authors: 楊明蒼
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/26026685551982863592

碩士 === 臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 96 === Discourse of the Nation in Layamon’s Brut Ting-ying Chen Abstract The present thesis locates itself within the discussions of discourses of the English nation in medieval works. Most scholars agree that a nation should at least have a demarcated territory, a group of people who identify with it, and a language of its own. I followed this guideline and explored how a writer of twelfth and thirteenth century England imagined and constructed his nation. I am not interested in determining whether the work reflected the actual political situation of the time, nor in discovering the possible origins of English nationalism. Rather, I analyze Layamon’s rhetorics of Englishness – that is to say, what to him meant the English nation and being a member of it. The Brut presents an interesting contradiction between its style – which is thought to have Anglo-Saxon inclinations – and its content – which deals primarily with the Britons, who are the Anglo-Saxons’ bitterest foes. In my analysis of the Brut’s construction of the English nation’s language, people, and territory, I suggest that such contradictions could be resolved and that the seeming contradictions were actually Layamon’s way of imagining his nation. Layamon’s Brut propounds an English identity tied to the land, incorporating all the peoples who identify with it.