"Glorious heroes who conquered this land": English national identity in the poem The Battle of Brunanburh
IDENTIDADE NACIONAL INGLESA NO POEMA A BATALHA DE BRUNANBURH
Keywords:
Brunanburh, National identity, Wessex, Medieval literatureAbstract
The Battle of Brunanburh, which took place in 937, is one of the landmarks in the establishment of an English kingdom under the House of Wessex. Recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the battle is the subject of a literary analysis in this article, which seeks to articulate the possible connections between the account of the battle and the construction of English identity in the medieval period, based on the observation of how the author uses rhetoric to foster the notion of values that were inherent to his people. To this end, we begin the text by introducing the poem and the main information we have about it and its context of production, followed by a description of the Battle of Brunanburh and an analysis of its agents, and then discuss the importance of the poem's characterizations for English national identity. Finally, we present our final considerations regarding the construction of identity in Brunanburh based on the transformation of kings and their warriors into heroic figures.
References
BARROW, J. & WAREHAM, A. Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
BARTHES, R. On Racine. Nova York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1983, pp. 153-172.
BRAVO, A. La caracterización del héroe en la poesía épico-heroica del inglés antiguo. Cuadernos del CEMYR, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, n. 1, p. 143-160, 1994.
FOOT, S. Athelstan: the first king of England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
FOOT, S. The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 1996. p. 25-28.
HARTMAN, M. E. Style and politics in The Battle of Brunanburh and The Battle of Maldon. In: ADAMS, Michael; BRINTON, Laurel J.; FULK, R. D. (ed.). Studies in the History of the English Language VI. Berlim: De Gruyter Monton, 2015. p. 201-217.
LAPIDGE, M.; BLAIR, J.; KEYNES, S.; SCRAGG, Donald. The Wiley
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. 2. ed. Chichester: WYLEY Blackwell,
LIVINGSTON, M. Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.
MEDEIROS, E. O. S. de. A batalha de Brunanburh. In: MEDEIROS, E. O. S. de. Beowulf e outros poemas anglo-saxônicos (séculos VIII-X). 1. ed. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2022. p. 283-287.
MEDEIROS, E. O. S. de. O Rei, O Guerreiro e O Herói: Beowulf e sua Representação no mundo germânico. Dissertação (Mestrado em História), Universidade de São Paulo, 2006.
NEAME, G. English nationalism in ‘The Battle of Maldon‘ and "The Battle of Brunanburh". Innervate, Nottingham, v. 8, p. 179-183, 2016.
NECKEL, K. J. Situações de Outridade: a participação do Outro na formação dos povos Ingleses (731-899). 2021. Dissertação (Mestrado em História) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2021.
DAVIES, R. Nations and National Identities in the Medieval World: An Apologia. Journal of Belgian History, Anderlecht, n. 4, p. 567-579, 2004.
WHITELOCK, D. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. London, 1961.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Eduarda Siqueira Leite, Giulliano Biancchi Araújo, Isabela Oliveira Federovicz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
