Abstract

A central topic in the scholarship of Laʒamon's Brut has been the apparent inconsistency between its verse style, in many ways reminiscent of classical Old English verse, and its content, much of which vilifies the first generations of Anglo-Saxon invaders in Britain and praises their enemies the Britons. Jorge Luis Borges, an admirer of Old English poetry and Laʒamon, sets this opposition in the strongest possible terms: “Layamon sang with fervor about the ancient battles of the Britons against the Saxon invaders, as if he were not a Saxon and as if Britons and Saxons had not been, since Hastings, conquered by the Normans.” He goes on to note how little we know about the author of Brut and the circumstances of its composition, and concludes by calling Laʒamon a “forgotten man, who abhorred his Saxon heritage with Saxon vigor, and who was the last Saxon poet and never knew it.”