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Studies on Middle Welsh Literature

Author: 
Year:
Pages:164
ISBN:0-7734-9641-6
978-0-7734-9641-5
Price:$159.95
Vernacular prose, both as medium for record and instruction and as means of entertainment, appears in a written form at an early period of Welsh literary history. It was an amalgam of native features with sources and analogues in traditional Celtic literature, and of borrowings and influences from the broader stream of European culture -- Old French epics and chanson de geste texts, as well as Latin literature. This collection of essays look at ways in which the so-called native tales, now called mabinogion, have become literary stories.

Reviews

"In this collection of essays, Dr Brynley Roberts, former National Librarian of Wales, examines the way in which oral tales assumed the literary guise in which they have survived to the modern period. . . . the author's greatest achievement. . . true and complex characterization. . . makes this volume even more attractive . . . . Both former students (at UCW, Aberystwyth and Swansea) and those who never had that pleasure and privilege will welcome these literary versions of his art." - Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies