Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Voice over
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The death of the hero
- 2 Survivors' songs
- 3 England's epic?
- 4 Who was Rupert Brooke?
- 5 Christ and the soldier
- 6 Owen's afterlife
- 7 Owen and his editors
- 8 The legacy of the Somme
- 9 The iconography of the Waste Land
- 10 War and peace
- 11 The fire from heaven
- 12 Henry Reed and the Great Good Place
- 13 The fury and the mire
- Notes
- Index
3 - England's epic?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Voice over
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The death of the hero
- 2 Survivors' songs
- 3 England's epic?
- 4 Who was Rupert Brooke?
- 5 Christ and the soldier
- 6 Owen's afterlife
- 7 Owen and his editors
- 8 The legacy of the Somme
- 9 The iconography of the Waste Land
- 10 War and peace
- 11 The fire from heaven
- 12 Henry Reed and the Great Good Place
- 13 The fury and the mire
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Beowulf (a Scandinavian saga, albeit one brilliantly translated from Anglo-Saxon by an Irish bard)? Malory's Morte Darthur? Tennyson's Idylls of the King? Doughty's The Dawn in Britain? No. None can compare with Homer's Iliad or Virgil's Aeneid as England's foundational epic. Let me propose another and, to my mind, stronger candidate: The Golden Warrior by Hope Muntz.
Published in 1948, this was reprinted three times in its first year and twice more before its reissue in paperback in 1966. Its all-too-brief bestsellerdom was the result of fortunate timing and virtues justly celebrated in a Foreword by the doyen of British historians, G. M. Trevelyan, that begins:
I regard it as an honour to be asked to introduce to the public this remarkable book. The author […] has a deep knowledge and love of the island she has twice seen threatened with invasion. This is the story of the successful invasion of England long ago.
It is not an ordinary historical novel, for the historical novel usually avoids the great personages and the famous scenes, and fills its canvas with imaginary characters. But this book is a Saga of Harold and William. The other personages, English and European, are historical portraits; they are subordinate to the two protagonists, but each of them stands as a clear-cut figure in the tapestry.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Survivors' SongsFrom Maldon to the Somme, pp. 35 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008