Selections from Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn

Description

"Selections from Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn" provides edited selections, together with an introduction, notes, and glossary, from a long and entertaining thirteenth century Welsh text which belongs to the genre of medieval translations. The source of "Ystorya Bown" is the "Anglo-Norman Geste de Boeve de Haumtone". This was a very popular tale in the Middle Ages and was translated not only into Welsh, but also into Middle English and Old Norse, and, via an English intermediary, into Early Modern Irish. This story allows fascinating insights into the heroic Christian mentality and world view of its audiences.

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780708322451
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SELECTIONS FROMYSTORYA BOWN O HAMTWN

THE LIBRARY OF MEDIEVAL WELSH LITERATURE

General Editors Nerys Ann Jones Erich Poppe

previous volume Welsh Court Poems edited by Rhian M. Andrews (2007)

SELECTIONS FROM YSTORYA BOWN O HAMTWN

Edited by Erich Poppe and Regine Reck

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2009

© Erich Poppe and Regine Reck, 2009

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 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS. 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 Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7083-2171-3 e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2245-1

The rights of Eric Poppe and Regine Reck to be identified as authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Printed in Wales by Dinefwr Press, Llandybïe

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Contents

Selections fromYstorya Bown o Hamtwn

Manuscript readings and variants

Notes on the text

Glossary

Personal Names and Places

Bibliography

vii

ix

xi

1

31

39

85

121

123

Preface

Translations of foreign texts into Middle Welsh are a somewhat neg- lected and underrated genre, in comparison with native productions such as theFour Branches of the Mabinogior the poetry of the Welsh courts. However, translations and adaptations of foreign narratives, as well as of a wide range of historical and religious writings, constitute a substantial portion of the corpus of Middle Welsh prose. For the literary historian, medieval translations have a special attraction. Since the translators as a rule followed an approach that intended to facilitate the reception of their sources by the new audiences, they transformed and rewrote them, sometimes quite dramatically. The differences between foreign source and Welsh adaptation vividly reflect the formative stylistic and literary conventions which medieval Welsh authors followed, as well as the expectations of their audiences. In this volume of the Library of Medieval Welsh Literature we present selections fromYstorya Bown o Hamtwn, the Welsh adap- tation of the Anglo-NormanGeste de Boeve de Haumtone. Boeve de Haumtone, dating to about the last decade of the twelfth century, was a hugely successful work, not only in the Insular context, where it was translated into Welsh, Norse, Middle English and, on the basis of a Middle English text, into Irish, but also on the Continent.Ystorya Bowntherefore gives modern readers a good idea about what a medieval Welsh audience found fascinating and entertaining in a narrative and introduces them to the genre of adaptations of foreign works in which the storyline of the source is preserved, but rewritten using predominantly Welsh narrative techniques. Comparison between source and adaptation is now greatly facilitated by Judith Weiss’s English translation ofBoeve de Haumtone.

viii

Preface

Ystorya Bownis a very long text, and we have therefore decided to give a selection of passages. These follow the development of the story and of Bown’s biography, and we have also included what we consider to be some narrative highlights. We wish to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial support in the initial stages of the preparation of this work; Vera Eilers, Nerys Ann Jones, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan and Ingo Mittendorf for all their help and advice; and the National Library of Wales for permission to use for the cover the first page ofYstorya Bownin NLW Ms. 19900 B, formerly MS Gwenogvryn Evans 1A, which was writtenc.1608 by John Jones of Gellilyfdy.

Erich Poppe and Regine Reck