Traditional Bardic Grammars in Renaissance Wales

This event has ended.

From the fourteenth century to the early modern period, the traditional bardic grammars (medieval technical manuals describing how to write in Welsh) were re-copied and edited by a series of poets, scholars, antiquarians, and administrators. In the 1570s, after centuries of copying, we find the longest and most complex version of the grammars: a version by Simwnt Fychan, a poet who was one of Gruffudd Hiraethog’s pupils. Due to Simwnt being in a circle of poets and humanists, there is a tendency to regard his grammar as a product of the Renaissance. However, following the publication of an edition in 1934, the grammar has been rarely discussed in scholarship and as a result, it is difficult to define Simwnt Fychan’s exact contribution. In this seminar, I will be discussing the initial part of my new research project on Simwnt Fychan’s grammar - a project where I will be considering to what extent his work reflects the roles of Welsh humanists, and to what extent Simwnt’s grammar is a conservative and traditional work. I will place Simwnt Fychan’s edition in its historical context and offer a detailed reading of its content, in order to offer introductory comments about the position of the work in Renaissance Wales.

This seminar will be delivered over Zoom in Welsh with simultaneous English translation available.

Michaela Jacques is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Medieval Studies, which is part of the University of Toronto. Michaela recently graduated from the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard, with a dissertation entitled \"The Reception and Transmission of the Bardic Grammars in Late Medieval and Early Modern Wales\".