Dr Diana Luft BA (Toronto), AM, PhD (Harvard)
Overview
Telephone: +44(0)29 208 77266
Fax: +44(0)29 208 74604
Extension: 77266
Location: Humanities Building
Research Interests
My primary research interest is in Welsh prose of the medieval and renaissance periods, especially in the rich corpus of texts that were translated into Welsh from other languages during these times. My PhD dissertation (Harvard, 2004), ‘Medieval and Renaissance Welsh Translation: The Case of Ymddiddan Selyf a Marcwlff’, is a study of a proverb debate which was translated from Latin into Welsh twice at the beginning of the Welsh renaissance. In it, the two translations are considered in the context of medieval Welsh translation, and also in connection with new ideas about linguistic correctness and fidelity in translation that characterized the new learning of the Welsh renaissance.
After completing my PhD I was employed as a researcher on the AHRC funded project Corff Electronig o Ryddiaith Cymraeg Canol under the leadership of Professor Peter Wynn Thomas. This experience provided a unique opportunity to study the medieval translations in their original form and in their medieval manuscript context.
From my initial interest in the medieval Welsh translations, and my subsequent work on their medieval manuscript sources, my attention has shifted to the later fate of these texts, specifically, to how they fared in the immediate post-medieval period. My present undertaking, funded by the British Academy and described below, is a study of the uses to which later collectors, publishers, scholars, and readers have put medieval Welsh prose, and the effects this usage has had on its modern-day reception.
Teaching Profile
BA in Welsh: Year One Second Language
- CY1584 Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg Fodern (contributor)
- CY1699 Cwrs Gloywi (contributor)
Publications
Selection of Publications
Website: Rhyddiaith Gymraeg 1350-1425 www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdydd.ac.uk Editor of the Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 18/19 and 20/21, which were published in 2006 and 2007.
‘Awdur neu Dyallwr Ystoriâu: Theori a Chyfieithiadau Cymraeg yr Oesoedd Canol’, Llenyddiaeth mewn Theori 1 (2006), 15-40.
‘Translation Theory and Medieval Translation’, Translations from Classical Literature: Imtheachta Æniasa and Stair Ercuil ocus a Bás, ed. Kevin Murray. Irish Texts Society Subsidiary Series 17 (2006), 83-100.
‘Genre and Diction in the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym: The revelation of cultural tension’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 18/19 (2006), 278-297.
Research
Research Project
Texts out of Time - Medieval Welsh Prose in the Early Modern Period: Funded by a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship, the project is a study of how Medieval Welsh prose texts were used by the collectors, scholars, and authors of the early modern period (1550-1900). It will focus on a discrete corpus of writings produced in the medieval period (1200-1500), including narrative texts both native and translated, wisdom tracts, religious treatises, and medical writings. The study will trace how these texts were transmitted in manuscripts in the early modern period, and published in journals, pamphlets, and anthologies. It will investigate how medieval texts were used by early modern scholars in responding to contemporary debates through focusing on a few concrete examples. Lastly, it will examine how these early modern responses to medieval prose texts went on to shape modern-day conceptions of the nature of the corpus of Medieval Welsh prose, and to influence its current reception.