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Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies #9
Dafydd Ap Gwilym: The Poems
Dafydd ap Gwilym, 14th cent. Dafydd ap the poems. Translation and commentary by Richard Morgan Loomis; illustrations by Mary Guerriere Loomis. Binghamton, Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982, 346 p, notes, bib, glossary, index, illus, maps. Very good, clean tight copy.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1350
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 25, 2012
It's not easy to convey the magic of Dafydd ap Gwilym in a translation, but reading the poetry in the original medieval Welsh is inaccessible to many people. The ideal solution - if you understand Welsh - is to have both the original and this book and read them together.
If you don't speak Welsh, however, these translations do manage to convey the energy, the joy, the wonderfully vivid depictions and compelling story-telling that is found in the originals. You get a real insight into the entertaining 14th century minstrel whose loves and passions inspired these great works - a cultured, educated man who didn't take himself or life or the world around him too seriously.
Beautifully translated by another cultured, educated man who has taken great care with the material and treated this enormous and difficult task with huge respect.
If you don't speak Welsh, however, these translations do manage to convey the energy, the joy, the wonderfully vivid depictions and compelling story-telling that is found in the originals. You get a real insight into the entertaining 14th century minstrel whose loves and passions inspired these great works - a cultured, educated man who didn't take himself or life or the world around him too seriously.
Beautifully translated by another cultured, educated man who has taken great care with the material and treated this enormous and difficult task with huge respect.
October 14, 2011
I happened upon this book in a used bookshop, having no idea who Dafydd ap Gwilym was. He immediately became one of my favorite medieval poets, in the same rank as Chaucer, the "Gawain" poet and the "Beowulf" poet. Where Dafydd - or I should say, Loomis's translation, as I am not equipped to assess the Welsh originals (sadly not included) - outdoes them is in the lyric. Take the following, from #17, "Elegy for Rhydderch":
A strange sermon was it to lay
Under this black turf
Knowledges, senses of love
I've kept these lines in my mind for years. They are a perfect expression of the almost inexpressable enormity of the loss accompanying death.
Or take the beautiful little line from #108, "The Heart":
It will be quiet in an unjealous way;
It will fill like a little egg.
A heart doesn't fill like a cup, with something poured into it; it fills quietly, like an egg, with something growing within it.
Finally, consider some lines from #131, "Yesterday", which also conclude Loomis's warm and entirely informing introduction:
After my wound (I am blind),
I'm tough like a withe from an apple tree
That bends easily (affliction's touch)
And will not break after a strong blow.
There is in me (faint memory of a smile)
The soul of a shivery old cat;
Let the wood-gray body be wounded, beaten,
Whatever be at it, it will live.
Dafydd's poetry is strikingly human, and Loomis's translations convey that humanity. This edition seems difficult to find, but it's definitely worth it if you have an interest in anything medieval, lyrical, Welsh, or just plain poetic.
A strange sermon was it to lay
Under this black turf
Knowledges, senses of love
I've kept these lines in my mind for years. They are a perfect expression of the almost inexpressable enormity of the loss accompanying death.
Or take the beautiful little line from #108, "The Heart":
It will be quiet in an unjealous way;
It will fill like a little egg.
A heart doesn't fill like a cup, with something poured into it; it fills quietly, like an egg, with something growing within it.
Finally, consider some lines from #131, "Yesterday", which also conclude Loomis's warm and entirely informing introduction:
After my wound (I am blind),
I'm tough like a withe from an apple tree
That bends easily (affliction's touch)
And will not break after a strong blow.
There is in me (faint memory of a smile)
The soul of a shivery old cat;
Let the wood-gray body be wounded, beaten,
Whatever be at it, it will live.
Dafydd's poetry is strikingly human, and Loomis's translations convey that humanity. This edition seems difficult to find, but it's definitely worth it if you have an interest in anything medieval, lyrical, Welsh, or just plain poetic.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews