TheGesta Regum Britanniae (Latin:Deeds of the Kings of Britain) is aLatinepic written at some time between 1235 and 1254, and attributed to a Breton monk,William of Rennes.
TheGesta is fundamentally a versification ofGeoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae in Latin epichexameters. It retains Geoffrey's overall sequence and structure, but expands upon those elements and stories which had the greatest dramatic potential, while treating other sections more cursorily. William omits theProphecies of Merlin section of theHistoria, asWace did in his earlierRoman de Brut. William may have read Geoffrey'sVita Merlini, but otherwise does not intrude any elements of the (by then very copious)Arthurian legend into his adaptation of theHistoria.
The form of theGesta was inspired byWalter of Châtillon'sAlexandreis. It is divided into ten books, each of which is prefaced by a terse summary of its contents, also in verse. The entire poem is 4,923 lines long, each book being about 500 lines in length.
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