Dissonant Neighbours

David Callander

Description

Articles

• Rebecca Thomas and David Callander, ‘Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Armes Prydein Vawr’, Anglo-Saxon England, forthcoming 2018.








• ‘Die diachrone Entwicklung der Erzählung in der kymrischen Heiligendichtung’ [‘The Diachronic Development of Narrative in Welsh Poetry to Saints’], in Eva von Contzen and Florian Kragl, ed., Narratologie und Mittelalter: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven [Narratology and the Middle Ages: Interdisciplinary Perspectives], forthcoming.








• ‘Laȝamon’s Dialogue and English Poetic Tradition’, English Studies 97 (2016), 709–24.








• Erik Kooper and David Callander, ‘The Middle English Life of St Teilo’, The Mediæval Journal 6 (2016), 29–72.








• ‘Trefn Canu Llywarch Hen yn Llyfr Coch Hergest’ [‘The Order of the Early Welsh Poems Canu Llywarch Hen in the Red Book of Hergest’], Llên Cymru 38 (2016), 1–11.








• ‘Datblygiad Armes Dydd Brawd’ [‘The Development of A Prophecy of Judgement Day, an early Welsh Poem’], Studia Celtica 49 (2015), 57–103.








• ‘The Corruption of Evidence in a Critical Tradition: Welsh and Old English Elegies’, Quaestio Insularis 15 (2014), 108–125.








• ‘Dau englyn maswedd o Ganu Heledd’ [‘Two erotic verses from the early Welsh poetic group The Song of Heledd’], Dwned 20 (2014), 31–6.








• ‘Middle English ‘cusky’’, Notes & Queries 258 (2013), 365–7.

Reviews

• Review of Barry Lewis, Medieval Welsh Poems to Saints and Shrines, Studia Celtica 50 (2016), 180–2.

Edited Volumes

• Caitlin Ellis, David Callander, Ben Guy, Nicholas Hoffman, Katherine Olley and Rebecca Shercliff, ed., Quaestio Insularis 16 (2015).

Public Outreach Publications

• Contributed to the Old English blog "The Riddle Ages", edited by Megan Cavell and Mathias Ammon.








• Contributed to the blog of the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, Cambridge.








• ‘Casgliad Celtaidd Ludwig Mühlhausen’ [‘Ludwig Mühlhausen’s Celtic Collection’], Y Casglwr 118 (2016), 10–11.

‘Dilyn Ôl-traed Gwenffrewi – Golygu’r Seintiau / After Winefride – Editing the Saints’, Parallel.cymru (published 24/06/2018).

Dissonant Neighbours compares early Welsh and English poetry up to c.1250, investigating why these two neighbouring literatures describe similar events in markedly different ways. Medieval Welsh and English texts were subject to many of the same Latin and French influences, and we see this in the stories told in the poetic traditions; comparing and contrasting the different approaches of Welsh and English poetry offers insight to the core narrative trends of both. How, where and why did early Welsh and English poets deploy narrative? These are key questions that this book seeks to answer, providing a groundbreaking new study which treats the Welsh and English poetry in an equal and balanced manner. It contributes to ongoing debates concerning multilingualism and the relationship between Welsh and English literature, dividing into four comparative chapters that contrast a wide range of early Welsh and English material, yielding incisive new readings in poetic tradition.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Battle
Chapter 2: Narrative at the End of the World
Chapter 3: Retelling Christ’s Birth and Early Life
Chapter 4: List and Narrative
Conclusions
Bibliography
Appendices
Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Irish
• English
• European
• Welsh
• Scottish

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786834003
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

DISSONANT NEIGHBOURS

DISSONANT NEIGHBOURS

NARRATIVE PROGRESS IN EARLY WELSH & ENGLISH POETRY

DAVID CALLANDER
© David Callander, 2019
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, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781786833983
eISBN: 9781786834003
The right of David Callander to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The University of Wales Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.

Cover image: detail from the twelfth-century Norman archway, between the nave and Galilee chapel at St Woolos Cathedral, Newport. © Charles and Patricia Aithie / ffotograff.
Cover design: Olwen Fowler
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
1  Battle
2  Narrative at the End of the World
3  Tense and Eternity: Retelling Christ’s Birth and Early Life
4  List and Narrative
Conclusions
Bibliography
Appendices
Notes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I t is a pleasure to recognize here the many debts I have incurred in producing this book. Firstly, I would like to thank my family for their constant encouragement, even as more than one house began to fill up with the books I amassed.
The number of scholars and others who have helped with this work is too numerous to list, but includes: Barry Lewis, Bethany Christiansen, Wyn Thomas; for inspiration and support at Oxford, Helen Brookman, Thomas Charles-Edwards, Heather O’Donoghue, Olivia Robinson, Daniel Thomas and Marion Turner; at Cambridge, Ben Allport, Ben Guy, Silva Nurmio, Alex Reider and Myriah Williams. I am particularly indebted to my doctoral supervisors Richard Dance and Paul Russell, and examiners Marged Haycock and Emily Thornbury.
I would like to thank University of Wales Press, especially Llion Wigley, for their support, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
I am grateful to the AHRC for funding my research and to the Leverhulme Trust for funding research in Germany. Besonders danken möchte ich auch Prof. Dr Stefanie Gropper, Prof. Dr Bernhard Maier, Dr Eva von Contzen und Prof. Dr Monika Fludernik.
Yn olaf ac yn bennaf, hoffwn ddiolch i Rebecca am ei chymorth a’i chariad.

ABBREVIATIONS

ASM
Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
ASPR
The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records
BBCS
Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies
BBGCC
Haycock, Blodeugerdd Barddas o Ganu Crefyddol Cynnar
Beo
Fulk, Bjork and Niles, Klaeber’s Beowulf
CBT
Cyfres Beirdd y Tywysogion
CA
Williams, Canu Aneirin
CLlH
Williams, Canu Llywarch Hen
CMCS
Cambridge/Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies
CT
Williams, Canu Taliesin
DIMEV
Mooney, Digital Index of Middle English Verse
DS
Louviot, Direct Speech
EETS
Early English Text Society
ELTC
Brown, English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century
ETD
Deskis, ‘Exploring Text and Discourse’
EWSP
Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry
ExA
Muir, Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry
Geirfa
Lloyd-Jones, Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg
GG
Lewis, ‘ Genre a Genres ym Marddoniaeth Grefyddol y Cynfeirdd a’r Gogynfeirdd’
GMW
Evans, Grammar of Middle Welsh
GPC
Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru
JDII
Caie, The Old English Poem Judgement Day II
JEGP
Journal of English and Germanic Philology
JNLH
Journal of Narrative and Life History
LAEME
Laing, A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English
LALME
A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English
LB
Brook and Leslie, Laȝamon: Brut
LiC
Labov, Language in the Inner City
LlC
Llên Cymru
LPBT
Haycock, Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin
LW
Labov and Waletzky, ‘Narrative Analysis’
LlDC
Jarman, Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin
MED
Middle English Dictionary
MWPS
Lewis, Medieval Welsh Poems to Saints and Shrines
NARRATIVE PROGRESS IN EARLY WELSH AND ENGLISH POETRY

MWRL
McKenna, Medieval Welsh Religious Lyric
NM
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen
NSNW
ap Huw, ‘Critical Examination of Welsh Poetry Relating to the Native Saints of North Wales’
OECP
Howe, Old English Catalogue Poems
OED
Oxford English Dictionary
OEMC
Karasawa, Old English Metrical Calendar
OES
Mitchell, Old English Syntax
OEVS
Bjork, Old English Verse Saints’ Lives
PBA
Proceedings of the British Academy
PrBT
Haycock, Prophecies from the Book of Taliesin
RD
Reichl, Religiöse Dichtung im englischen Hochmittelalter
RES
Review of English Studies
SC
Studia Celtica
YB
Ysgrifau Beirniadol
ZCP
Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie
PREFACE

T wo short sections of this book are published elsewhere. Parts of the Introduction are published in different and more extended form in ‘Die diachrone Entwicklung der Erzählung in der kymrischen Heiligendichtung’. Certain sections of chapter 1 also appeared in ‘Laȝamon’s Dialogue and English Poetic Tradition’, published in English Studies , 97 (2016).

INTRODUCTION

E arly Welsh poetry is difficult, or so the old saying goes. 1 Yet where exactly do we locate this difficulty? Certainly there are philological problems, with numerous hapax legomena and doubtless much textual corruption, but these issues are common in early medieval poetry, whatever the language. When the claim is made that early Welsh poetry presents particular difficulties, it is worth bearing in mind the words of Hayden White:
We may not be able fully to comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that culture may appear to us. As Barthes says, ‘narrative ….. is translatable without fundamental damage’ in a way that a lyric poem or a philosophical discourse is not. 2
No other major western European medieval literature has so little narrative verse as Welsh. Early Irish verse also contains a relatively small amount of narrative, a point of considerable interest given the literatures’ hereditary and geographic proximity, yet still substantially more than medieval Welsh. 3
Ironically, the tradition most in contrast with Welsh is that geographically closest. Both Old and early Middle English abound in narrative verse, which can extend for thousands of lines, something wholly unheard of in medieval Welsh. Yet this basic statement of difference merely opens lines of inquiry rather than closing them. What is the real nature of this difference, and how does it vary in the large and diverse corpora of early Welsh and English poetry? It is clearly not true that early English poetry always has sustained and progressive narrative under any conditions. Equally, early Welsh poetry is not uniformly non-progressive and non-narrative. This book examines where, how, and why this is the case, using each tradition to throw the other into contrast. In doing this, I follow in the footsteps of the excellent and underappreciated comparative work of Sarah Higley, who brought early Welsh and Old English nature poems together that we might see them better apart. 4
NARRATIVE PROGRESS IN EARLY WELSH AND ENGLISH POETRY

In examining instances where narrative is found in early Welsh poetry, I challenge and complicate the long-standing view that there is no early Welsh narrative verse. 5 I attempt to find patterns among early Welsh narrative poems, and see how these can inform our reading of them as a group. These texts form the structural basis of this book, determining its four comparative chapters on secular battle poetry, eschatological verse, Christ’s birth and early life, and the interplay between list and narrative. Examining the stylistic device of the list together with the other three topics allows for a comprehensive treatment of early Welsh narrative poems, as they all engage with at least one of these elements. These poems are brought into comparison with English poems dating before around 1250 which narrate the same or similar events, or, in chapter 4 , use similar structural devices. But first I must explain why I compare English, and why the date-range runs to c .1250.
The dating of many poems examined here is highly contested. Early Welsh poetry divides into Hengerdd and the works of Beirdd y Tywysogion (poets of the native Welsh princes). 6 Although the division between these two corpora is not always stark, it is safe to talk of two poles around which most poems locate themselves, as with Old Norse Eddic and Skaldic poetry. The works of Beirdd y Tywysogion are reasonably solidly dated, mostly being attributed to historical poets flourishing between 1100 and 1282. 7 Conversely, the dating of Hengerdd is most uncertain, although much of it likely overlapped with the period in which Beirdd y Tywysogion composed. The distinction between the two is thus often more of genre than chronology. Hengerdd is normally anonymous and found in manuscripts only from the mid-thirteenth century onwards, this providing the terminus ad quem of c .1250. 8 However, following the work of Ifor Williams in the early twentieth century, a core of poetry attributed to Aneirin and Taliesin was thought to represent the actual work of these poets from sixth-century North Britain, with most of the remaining material being perhaps three or four centuries later. 9 Marged Haycock argued that the legendary poems of Llyfr Taliesin (an early fou