SOURCE: Gillespy, Frances Lytle. “The Narrative Art of Layamon's Brut and a Comparison with Wace's Brut.” University of California Publications in Modern Philology 3, no. 4 (November 24, 1916): 378-96.

In the following essay, Gillespy compares Wace's Brut with Layamon's and argues that Layamon's descriptions of time and place are richer and more artful.

I. Time-setting

The supposedly historical character of the work governs, to a large extent, the use of time-settings in both writers. Wace, following Geoffrey in the main, makes frequent statements as to the duration of reigns and events within reigns, and Layamon in his turn takes Wace as his model for the time skeleton of his work. He dates, however, more frequently and in more exact terms than does Wace,¹ and he goes far beyond the French writer in the description of attendant circumstance. He occasionally describes wintry weather.² Now and then he tells of a pleasant day...