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The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
There is a persistent Welsh tradition, going back to very early times, that there were poets in the sixth century, among whom [A]neirin et Taliessin “in poemate brittannico claruerunt.” To these poets Welsh scholarship has given the name of Cynfeirdd or “Primitive Poets.” Recent research has done much to establish the fact that some of the poems credited to them are genuine productions of the early seventh century, and others, including those centering around the name of Llywarch the Old (Hên), belong to the mid ninth century. There are, however, sceptics who refuse to admit the existence of native poetry at such an early date, and hold that all the poems (except two short ones that were actually written down in the ninth and tenth centuries), belong to a period after the Norman Conquest.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952
Footnotes
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This paper was read before the Medieval Section of the Modern Language Association of America at its meeting in New York City on 27 Dec. 1950.—Ed.
References
Bibliographical Note
The poetry of the Gogynfeirdd has been preserved for us primarily in two MSS. It was first published (from later copies) in The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (1801; 2nd ed. 1870) and reprinted with a preface by Edward Anwyl in The Poetry of the Gogynfeirdd from the Myvyrian Archaiology (Denbigh, 1909). The primary texts have been reprinted by J. Gwenogvryn Evans as The Poetry of the Red Book of Eergest, Reproduced and Edited (Llanbedrog, N. Wales, 1911), and Poetry by Medieval Welsh Bards, Vol. ii (Llanbedrog, Pwllheli, 1926). This latter contains an index of first lines and an index of persons and places for the entire corpus of Gogynfeirdd poetry. There is another edition of the second MS. (Hendregadredd or Gwengraig) by Rhiannon Morris-Jones, John Morris-Jones, and T. H. Parry-Williams as Llawysgrif Hendregadredd (Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 1933).Google Scholar
This poetry is discussed by H. I. Bell in his The Development of Welsh Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936) and in the essay affixed to his Welsh Poetry of the Twentieth Century (Wrexham: Hughes and Son, 1925). See also J. Lloyd-Jones, “The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes,” Proc. Brit. Acad., xxxiv; T. H. Parry-Williams, “Welsh Poetic Diction,” Proc. Brit. Acad., xxxiii; J. Vendryes, La poésie galloise des XIIe-XIIIe siècles dans ses rapports avec la langue, The Zaharoff Lecture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930); David James (“Defynnog”), A Primer of Kymric Literature (Cardiff: Educational Pub. Co., n.d.). The grammars are reprinted, but without translations, by G. J. Williams and E. J. Jones in Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid (Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 1934).Google Scholar