Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Geoffrey of Monmouth'sDe gestis Britonum (History of the Kings of Britain, completed in the late 1130s) and its various vernacular translations, reworkings, and continuations (known collectively as the Brut tradition) were enormously popular in the Middle Ages.Hundreds of manuscripts containing Brut texts have survived to our present day.Despite its popularity in medieval Britain, texts in the Brut tradition have never captured as much scholarly attention as other types of medieval literature.Doubtless this neglect has something to do with the historical content and historiographical self-positioning of the Brut tradition.Unlike a medieval romance or a poem by Chaucer, Brut chronicles tend not to openly invite examination through literary-theoretical lenses.Nevertheless, over the last few decades, several scholars (including Monika Otter, Nancy Partner, Gabrielle Spiegel, and Michelle Warren, to name just a few) have written monographs that embrace literary-theoretical approaches, using them to uncover how and why medieval history writing might have captivated the attention of its medieval audiences.Weaver's Experimental Histories: Interpolation and the Medieval British Past is a welcome addition to this small yet vital thread of scholarship.Weaver's intervention in this field centers around interpolation, which Weaver argues "became a characteristic form of medieval histories of Britain because its interruptive force gave historians a chance to reenvision historical time in narrative" (193).For Weaver, interpolation's disruption of linear narrative created opportunities for alternative conceptualizations of time to emerge.Studying these interstices gave medieval audiences the opportunity to reflect on the past, and it gives modern scholars access to medieval Modern Philology, volume 123, number 1,
Source: Modern Philology
DOI: 10.1086/735476
Author: Jacqueline M. Burek
Institution: George Mason University
Language: English
Subfield: Classics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4408186750