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A concise and authoritative survey of the Welsh- and English-language literatures of Wales from the earliest period up to the present day. This illustrated guide, containing extracts from original texts with English translations, is a revised version of Professor Dafydd Johnston’s volume in the University of Wales Press Pocket Guide series, and includes a new chapter on contemporary writing.

Sujets

Literary Criticism

Idioma galés

Literature

Irish

English

European

Welsh

Scottish

Wales

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Publié par	University of Wales Press
Date de parution	01 février 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781786830234
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0408€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE LITERATURE OF WALES
The Literature of Wales
Dafydd Johnston
© Dafydd Johnston, 2017
First published in 1994
This revised edition published in 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library CiP Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78683-021-0
e-ISBN 978-1-78683-023-4
The right of Dafydd Johnston to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of illustrations
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
   1 Heroic Poetry
   2 Early Medieval Poetry
   3 Medieval Prose
   4 Medieval Poetry
   5 The Renaissance
   6 The Eighteenth Century
   7 The Victorian Age
   8 The Literary Revival of the Early Twentieth Century
   9 The Inter-War Years
10 Post-War Literature
11 The Later Twentieth Century
12 Contemporary Literature
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
The author and publisher wish to thank the copyright holders who have kindly permitted the reproduction of the following:
Illustrations
Pages from the Book of Aneirin, the Black Book of Carmarthen, Peniarth 28, Peniarth 109, the 1588 Bible, Gwaedd Ynghymru , William Williams Pantycelyn, the 1865 National Eisteddfod, Aberystwyth, Daniel Owen, and the photograph of Lewis Valentine, Saunders Lewis and D. J. Williams, by permission of the National Library of Wales.
Lewis Morris and Caradoc Evans by permission of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.
Gillian Clarke by permission of the author and Literature Wales.
Owen Sheers and Angharad Price, by their own permission.
Poetry and prose extracts
‘Death Song for Owain ab Urien’, ‘In Praise of Tenby’, ‘Sadness in Springtime’, ‘A Selection of Stanzas for the Harp’, ‘Song to the Nightingale’, ‘The Love of God’, ‘What Passes and Endures’, an extract from ‘The Departure of Arthur’, (translations) from Welsh Verse (Seren Books, 1986) by permission of Seren Books.
‘This Spot’, ‘J.S.L.’, an extract from ‘In Berlin – August 1945’, ‘Preseli’, ‘A Little Monoglot Welsh Girl’, translations by Joseph P. Clancy, from Twentieth Century Welsh Poems (1982) by permission of Gwasg Gomer.
‘Marged’ by permission of Gillian Clarke.
‘Gwalia Deserta XXVI’, Idris Davies, by permission of Gwasg Gomer.
‘In Hospital: Poona (1)’, Alun Lewis, by permission of Gweno Lewis.
‘Reservoirs’, R. S. Thomas, by permission of Gwydion Thomas.
‘Tranc y Cof’ by permission of Alan Llwyd.
‘Remembering Mari’, Glyn Jones, by permission of Literature Wales.
‘My Dusty Kinsfolk’, John Ormond, by permission of Rian Evans.
‘Let the World’s peoples Shout’, Menna Elfyn, and ‘What’s in a Name’, Gwyneth Lewis, by permission of Bloodaxe Books.
‘Denominations’, Damian Walford Davies, by permission of Seren Books.
Extract from ‘A Father in Sion’, Caradoc Evans, from My People (1915, new edn. Seren, 1987) by permission of Seren Books.
Extracts from ‘In Praise of Urien Rheged’, translated by J. Saunders Lewis, and Buchedd Garmon by J. Saunders Lewis, by permission of Siwan Jones.
Extracts from The Mabinogion (1948) translated by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, by permission of Everyman Library.
Extracts from Ellis Wynne (Writers of Wales, 1984) by Gwyn Thomas and Goronwy Owen (Writers of Wales, 1986) by Branwen Jarvis, by permission of the University of Wales Press.
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of the extracts in this volume. In the case of any query, please contact the publishers.
List of illustrations
  1 A page from the Book of Aneirin.
  2 A page from the Black Book of Carmarthen.
  3 Illustrations from the Welsh Laws in MS Peniarth 28.
  4 Two pages from one of Lewys Glyn Cothi’s manuscripts (Peniarth 109).
  5 A page from the Old Testament of the 1588 Bible.
  6 The first page of Morgan Llwyd’s Gwaedd Ynghymru.
  7 A portrait of Lewis Morris.
  8 A portrait of William Williams Pantycelyn based on a sketch drawn from memory by an amateur artist.
  9 A sketch of the 1865 National Eisteddfod at Aberystwyth from Illustrated London News .
10 Daniel Owen.
11 A portrait of Caradoc Evans by Evan Walters.
12 Lewis Valentine, Saunders Lewis and D. J. Williams on their way to Pwllheli Magistrates’ Court in September 1936. Photograph taken by J. E. Jones.
13 Gillian Clarke.
14 Owen Sheers.
15 Angharad Price.
Preface to the First Edition
The main aim of this book is to provide essential factual information about the literature of Wales, both Welsh-language and English. But the very process of compression and selection inevitably goes further than that, involving subjective value-judgements. I have tried to be as even-handed as possible, but if my personal preferences are still obvious from the amount of space given to certain authors, then I can only hope that some degree of enthusiasm compensates for the loss in objectivity. As for the numerous excellent contemporary writers who have not been named, or not given their due, I can only plead lack of space and beg forgiveness. Unless otherwise stated, translations of extracts quoted are my own. I am aware that the historical background to the literature is only sketchily conveyed here, and would recommend J. Graham Jones’s companion volume in this series on the history of Wales.
I would like to thank my colleagues, Dr Sioned Davies and Dr Medwin Hughes, for their helpful comments on parts of this book in typescript, and my wife, as ever, for her shrewd criticism. I am also indebted to Susan Jenkins and Ceinwen Jones of the University of Wales Press for their skilled editorial work.
DAFYDD JOHNSTON July 1994
Preface to the Second Edition
I am delighted that the University of Wales Press have seen fit to republish my work, and I hope that it will serve to introduce a new generation of readers to the rich literature of Wales. In preparing this new edition I have kept revisions to a minimum, other than the final two chapters which give a necessarily impressionistic survey of the literature of the twenty-two years since publication of the first edition. I am very grateful to Professor Jane Aaron for her kind advice regarding those two chapters. The staff of the University of Wales Press have been extremely helpful, as always, and I am indebted in particular to Dr Llion Wigley for his constant support.
DAFYDD JOHNSTON December 2016
1
Heroic Poetry
The poetic tradition
Two essential features of the Welsh poetic tradition are its antiquity and the continuity of its central theme of praise. By virtue of the works which have survived by two poets of the late sixth century, Taliesin and Aneirin, Welsh can claim to be the oldest attested vernacular literature in Europe. Welsh poets of the Middle Ages venerated Taliesin in particular as the founding father of the praise tradition, and deliberately wove echoes of the hengerdd (literally ‘old song’) into their own compositions. The elaborate patterning of sound which is a characteristic feature of the Welsh poetic craft is present in embryo in the earliest poetry. However, Taliesin and Aneirin should not in fact be seen as originators, but rather as inheritors of an already ancient and sophisticated bardic tradition common to the Celtic peoples and incorporating Indo-European social ideals. They stand at the very end of the Brythonic period of British history, nearly two hundred years after the end of the Roman occupation, and their work bears witness to the crucial conflict between the Brythonic tribes of northern Britain and the Germanic invaders.
The Old North
The earliest Welsh poetry is Welsh in a linguistic sense rather than a geographical one. In the late sixth century an early form of Welsh was spoken in the western half of Britain from southern Scotland down to Cornwall. Invading Germanic tribes occupied the eastern half of the island, and were gradually extending their territories westwards. Only one of Taliesin’s surviving poems relates to the area now known as Wales. The rest of his work and all that of Aneirin belongs to the Brythonic kingdoms of what is now northern England and southern Scotland. The three independent kingdoms of that region were Rheged around the Solway estuary, Strathclyde further to the north around the estuary of the Clyde, and Gododdin to the east with its centre at Edinburgh. After the collapse of the kingdoms of Rheged and Gododdin in the seventh century, and the subsequent political isolation of Wales, the traditions and stories of the North may have been preserved in Strathclyde before being transmitted to Wales, where they came to represent the legendary heroic age of the Brythonic people, providing source material which Welsh poets and story-tellers were to draw on during the following centuries. There has been a good deal of scholarly debate over the authenticity of this early poetry, since the manuscript copies are of a much later date, and textual corruption no doubt occurred during the process of both oral and written transmission, but the general consensus is that a nucleus of genuine sixth-century material has survived in something close to its original form.
Taliesin
The work of Taliesin is preserved in a manuscript of the early fourteenth century known as the Book of Taliesin. Amongst that compendium of early and medieval poetry attributed to the legen