literature, from Malory to Tennyson and on to our own time. This edition combines a fully-edited version of the original text with a close parallel prose translation, together with a lengthy Introduction, textual notes and a full and up-to-date bibliography.Written c.1200-1220, the Brut develops the themes of its principal source, Robert Wace's Roman de Brut, itself a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's bestseller, the Historia Regum Britanniae, in a metre and idiom reminiscent of Old English. It demonstrates the fundamental strength of a native culture which survived two centuries of French dominance to re-emerge as a fusion of a national tradition and continental influences.

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