The Bruce by John Barbour

The Bruce by John Barbour

Composed in the 1370s, John Barbour's The Bruce is a foundational work of Scottish literature written in the vernacular. A long narrative poem recounting the story of Robert the Bruce's struggle to reassert Scotland's status as an independent nation, it is also our main source of information about Bruce's life. Since deciphering the medieval text is a daunting struggle for most readers, this book seeks to make The Bruce accessible to a wider public by rendering it into modern English in a free translation which aims to be readable yet faithful to the sense and spirit of the original. Now retired, James Higgins is a former Professor of Latin American Literature at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of the British Academy. This book is born of a lifelong interest in the literature of his native Scotland and of his conviction that the literature of early times should not be the exclusive preserve of academic specialists.

John Barbour (1320-95) was an early Scottish poet and the first major author to write in Scots. His main surviving work is The Bruce, a verse epic about the life of Robert the Bruce, and a significant historical source.

John Barbour lived between 1330 and 1395. Most of his working life was spent as archdeacon of Aberdeen, and the poem was written in 1375 in the reign of Robert II. He is thus a rough contemporary of Chaucer, but his verse chronicle falls rather more into the tradition of Froissart and the other great chroniclers of the age of chivalry. The language of the poem is Scots at an early stage of development. The range of imagery and references provides an insight into the medieval mind. The editor A.A.M. Duncan is the author of "The Making of the Kingdom".

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780862416812
ISBN 10	0862416817
Title	The Bruce
Author	John Barbour
Series	Canongate Classics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Canongate Books
Year published	1997-02-28
Number of pages	800
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.