Poet of the Medieval Modern, my first monograph, has just won the University English Book Prize 2022! I’m really delighted to see the book receive this recognition and to see that the judges have understood so well what it was I wanted to achieve.
The judges write:
‘This is an exceptional book that combines a wealth and depth of scholarship with an engaging writing style that draws even the non-specialist reader in. Focussed on The Anathemata, a work published by Faber in 1952 by autodidact, artist, and poet David Jones, it demonstrates through meticulous examination of archival materials and annotations from the Anglo-Saxon Library as well as from previously unexamined correspondence, the extent to which acts of reading and creative critical thinking on Jones’s part underpinned production of The Anathemata, a culturally and linguistically composite text that uses translation as a means of cultural renewal.
It makes an original contribution to both Medieval Studies and Modernism, the former in respect of Jones’s engagement with Old English which Brooks shows to have had ‘a far greater influence … than previously recognized’ on his work, the latter in respect of the archival turn in New Modernist Studies. It combines archival research and genetic criticism with a nuanced understanding of creative process. […]
Uncovering a richly hybrid heritage that transcends national categories, this is an important book not just for modernist scholars in general but for anyone thinking about literary identity.’
You can buy the paperback for just £18.99 from any online book retailer, but if you decide to buy direct from OUP here you can use the code ‘AAFLYG6’ to get 30% off.
The first review, written by Paul Robichaud for Modern Philology, can also be read here.
Francesca Brooks 