The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance

by Robert Allen Rouse

Investigation into the importance of the Anglo-Saxon past in medieval literature.

As the point of origin, both real and imagined, of English law and group identity, the Anglo-Saxon past was important in the construction of a post-Conquest English society that was both aware of, and placed great stock in, its Anglo-Saxon heritage; yet its depiction in post-Conquest literature has been very little studied. This book examines a wide range of sources (legal and historiographical as well as literary) in order to reveal a "social construction" of Anglo-Saxon England that held a significant place in the literary and cultural imagination of the post-Conquest English. Using a variety of texts, but the Matter of England romances in particular, the author argues that theyshow a continued interest in the Anglo-Saxon past, from the localised East Sussex legend of King Alfred that underlies the twelfth-century Proverbs of Alfred, to the institutional interest in the Guy of Warwick narrative exhibited by the community of St. Swithun's Priory in Winchester during the fifteenth century; they are part of a continued cultural remembrance that encompasses chronicles, folk memories, and literature.

Dr ROBERT ALLLEN ROUSE teaches in the Department of English, University of British Columbia.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843840413
• ISBN13: 9781843840411
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.4"