Writing the future : Layamon's prophetic history

La3amon's Brut - a twelfth-century verse history of Britain from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the seventh-century Cadwalader - is the first major work in English after the Norman conquest and also marks the first appearance of the Arthurian legends in English.

Previous Brut scholarship has tended to focus on the philological and linguistic aspects of the text, despite its historical importance and interest.

Writing the Future demonstrates La3amon's use of prophecy as a narrative strategy to unite and respond to political and religious ideologies, and uses the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to rethink the relationship between literature and history in the Brut.

Kelley Wickham-Crowley also considers the role of oral cultures in creating literary ones, the influence of the Welsh on the evolution of British political identity, and how disparate communities become one in La3amon's vision for Britain's future.

This first full-length study of the Brut as a literary whole shows how La3amon's vision breaks new ground in the development of English narrative forms.