Description
Book SynopsisAlfred is the only English King honoured with this name and is credited with various successes (the foundation of a navy, English education system and religious revival). The medieval 'Life' of King Alfred of Wessex purports to be written by Asser, a monk in the King's service.
Trade Review'Alfred Smyth's The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great is a pathbreaking work...a sophisticated introduction and study of the entire field of Alfredian biography, ancient and modern...The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great also serves as an excellent introduction to the text of the Life itself and to the controversies surrounding its creation and history.' - Professor Daniel Melia, University of California, Berkeley
'Alfred Smyth's new translation and commentary challenges consensus opinion at every level...an extensive commentary relates the Life to the new and still-developing awareness of historical writing in the late Anglo-Saxon period...Smyth's text asks new questions and provides new answers, offering a more complex account of the origins of England, and of English History, than has been possible to date.' - Tom Shippey, Saint Louis University, Missouri
'...this translation...is useful for presenting a version without many of the previous editorial emendations...' - J.L. Leland, Choice
Reviews from previous book:
'Smyth's book, then, must stand as the definitive account of the reign.' - Peter Ackroyd, The Times
'This is a glorious book. It rescues a great English ruler from some of the more obtuse concepts and prejudices of our own time, and builds more carefully on ninth-century foundations than any other biography yet published.' - Eric Christiansen, The Spectator
Table of ContentsAbbreviations Introduction [A]Translation of the Life of King Alfred [B] Commentary A Tour Around the Manuscripts The Author of the Life The Author's Latin Style The Author's Use of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Why Was the Life of King Alfred Written at Ramsay in C.A.D. 1000? Index
