Provides a concise and informative guide to Welsh literature from the earliest
surviving poetry of Taliesin and Aneirin in the sixth century - the oldest attested
vernacular literature in Europe. Provides a concise and informative guide to Welsh literature from the earliest
surviving poetry of Taliesin and Aneirin in the sixth century - the oldest attested
vernacular literature in Europe.
'Dafydd Johnston's book is a small masterpiece of compression and balance . . . For anyone approaching this subject for the first time, or for someone wanting to get an overall view of it, this book is going to be invaluable.' (Planet)
'Professor Johnston provides the reader with a . . . reliable guide which also incorporates the latest research.' (Books in Wales)
'No school library or student of literature should be without it.' (Western Mail)
The Guide traces the flowering of medieval Welsh literature and the developments of the Renaissance period in Wales up to the Welsh literary revival of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which also saw the rapid burgeoning of 'Anglo-Welsh' writing - literature in English written out of a Welsh background. It concludes by surveying the contemporary situation in the literatures of both languages.
Professor Dafydd Johnston, Head of the Department of Welsh at University of Wales Swansea, here gives a balanced critical assessment relating the literature to its historical background. Numerous extracts translated from Welsh and quotations in English give the general reader a taste of the richness of Welsh literature.